All Emails Missing in cPanel Webmail (Roundcube)

Hi everyone,

I'm dealing with a confusing issue related to email on cPanel and would like to ask if anyone here has experienced something similar. I’m using Roundcube as webmail and Outlook as the email client, configured with IMAP. A few days ago, all emails suddenly disappeared from Roundcube. Not just from the inbox, but also from all folders like spam and trash — everything appears empty.

My hosting provider claimed that the emails were possibly "pulled" into Outlook. However, since I’m using IMAP (not POP3), this explanation doesn’t make much sense to me — as IMAP should only sync emails, not move or delete them from the server. They also mentioned there may have been a "user error" in cPanel that caused the mailbox to reset, but didn’t clarify what kind of action could lead to that.

I checked the /mail/domain/emailuser/ directory via File Manager in cPanel and found that both cur/ and new/ folders were empty. There are no visible backups. Outlook also has no auto-delete or archive rules configured. I checked “Track Delivery” in cPanel as well, but found no unusual activity or mail delivery issues.

Here are my questions:

1. Can IMAP in Outlook somehow delete emails from the server without user intent?

2. Is it possible that misconfiguration or accidental deletion/recreation of the email account in cPanel caused this reset?

3. Is there any way to view email-related activity logs in a shared hosting environment?

4. If the /mail/ folders are empty, is there any way to recover or rebuild the mailbox?

I would really appreciate any insight, similar experience, or suggestions to help me understand and resolve this issue. Thank you in advance!