Ask A Geek

Q: I have been with aol for over 11 years and conducted my business online. My email list is very large and aol has suspended my account because they said TOS problems. All of my emails are not unsolicited, I receive my email addresses from my website and in person. I am trying to reinstate my account with them but unfortunately the only way to do that is through the mail. So now I am in a sit and wait position. Is there a way to get my email addresses that I have saved in my AOL Personal Filing cabinet.

Q: I allowed my friend to use my AOL account to chat in an AOL chat room. He used some bad language in the chat room and then AOL deleted my account. Is there any way I can get my mail from that account? How can I prevent all of this from happening to me again?

A: I advise that you call AOL as soon as possible by dialing 1-800-827-6364 (or 1-800-759-3323 if you require TTY). You may encounter an AOL representative who is willing & able to help you. But please keep in mind that AOL may have already deleted the emails from your terminated account.

It is also important for me to mention that AOL may choose not to help you, even if it can. AOL proclaims in the AIM Terms of Service and the AOL Network Registered User Terms of Service that it has the right to terminate any screen name without warning, for any reason. The company also states that a user is ultimately responsible for making backups of his/her emails.

There is one major guideline that I can suggest which will help you to prevent this kind of catastrophe from happening to you again. You should find an email provider, such as Google’s Gmail, that will allow you to use the technology known as POP to download all of your emails to your computer’s built-in email program. Examples of built-in email programs include Outlook Express (Windows XP), Windows Mail (Windows Vista), and Apple Mail (Mac OS X).

Good Luck!

Q: My friend used my AOL and AIM for a number of indecent activities, including sending personal photos. I’d like to find out exactly what they did by recovering deleted AOL email and AIM messages, received files, etc. Is there a free way to do so or maybe some software you recommend to purchase? I’ve got a PC operating on Windows XP.

A: You would have to purchase a program to restore your old emails. AOL only keeps your email messages on their server for 24 hours. I would recommend a program called Recover My Email because you can download and run the scan and it will give you a list of deleted email before you purchase so that you would be assured it had found what you were looking for before purchasing the program. I wasn’t able to find a reputable and functional free program to do this.

As far as the Instant Messaging there is no way to recover those. When the conversation is closed those messages are gone. However, I would recommend at this point that you add a program to your computer that runs in the background (so that the person does not know it is there) and it will record the instant messaging conversations for you. I was able to find a free program that does this called Record Instant Messages. I tried it out and it works well.

Q: I have a Dell computer with Windows XP installed. I am not savvy when it comes to this type of thing, but I want to recover email files from my AOL account. I think my roommate has been using my email account on AOL for things that are questionable at the least. Is there any way to recover the deleted emails and find out the truth about her?

A: AOL saves your email only 24 hours after it has been deleted with the exception of email that was in your spam folder. The steps will below will assist you in retrieving that deleted mail from the last 24 hours and it will move that deleted email into the inbox.

1. Login with your screen name and password.
2. Click the Sign on button.
3. Click the Recently Deleted link.
4. Select the box next to the message you want to recover to place a check mark there.
5. Select Restore.

If you are looking to restore email that was deleted longer than 24 hours you cannot access that from AOL. There are many programs out there that you could try to retrieve them but you would have to be willing to pay for the software to do that for you.

Q: I want to download the new free AOL software, but what one would I download, the security one or the new OpenRide one. I have wireless, and wanted to know if they are any good.

A: According to the FAQ on AOL’s Website:

Basically OpenRide is a revamp of the interface. If you really want to use AOL software I would recommend going with the latest version which is OpenRide.