My Windows Live Mail synced last week and erased thousands of emails off the server and my computer. Fortunately, I believe they were backed up although getting to them is not easy. I have had some success restoring them onto another  computer's WLM storage folders. I am worried that if I go online and open WLM it will sync again and the server wlll again erase everything that is in WLM that is not on the server.  I have read that outlook.com randomly deleting huge number of emails is not uncommon. This has created a nightmare for me - in the middle of a rather delicate situation. Right now, I think I have all the emails in those Storage folders and my normal folders which were mostly untouched - it was the inbox that got decimated. Any idea how to use WLM online to send messages and receive messages without syncing so the stupid server won't delete all the stuff stored on my computer, which is now the only copy I have of thousands of emails? NB: i did nothing unusual, just signed on and sent a message. I noticed my inbox shrank by half. I am lazy about filing stuff, and it can get up over 50,000 messages. I chatted with a MS tech, and they said all the emails were gone for good -- off MS' servers, poof. If I didn't have another copy of WLM on the other computer, or a backup, I'd be dead. It seems the emails went off MS' server due to their issues, nothing I did, and when I synced, it cleaned me out. So: Can you use WLM online and NOT have it sync and match what's on the machine to what's on the server?