I wonder if someone can help me with this. My husband passed away a month ago and I discovered that he had been secretly communicating with and meeting up with a number of women right up until his death (full story in the "In Recovery" forum). I found this out by going on his iPad and looking through his emails, many of which he had deleted. I didn't need to use his passwords to access the emails because the email addresses are still signed in on the iPad.

There were three different email addresses that he used on his iPad and I'm finding that the inboxes won't load any more emails before July last year. One email address in particular is the "secret" one he used to communicate with the women. It's possible that he had simply deleted all emails prior to that date but I'm more inclined to think that it's an iPad thing. It might seem pointless to go back into earlier emails now that he's gone, but I need to find out as many details as possible so I can have some closure.

What I would like to know is whether there is a way to find out the sign-in password for that particular email address so that I can look it up on my PC and see whether any more emails will load. It's a Hotmail address. It would have been at least a few years since he signed in on my PC and it's possible that he might have accessed the email address on his laptop but he'd had the iPad for two and a half years and he rarely used his laptop in that time - if he did he probably wouldn't have used it for emails.

I'm hoping that someone here might have some bright ideas.

I'm sorry to hear about this, ss. How shocking to find those emails.

Since the ipad is signed into the email accounts, go to each account in turn and ask for a password reminder. The existing password will be sent to whichever email account was nominated. Let's hope it is one that you can already access.

Also, you could reduce the size of the inbox by putting the post-July messages into a new folder - or forwarding them to your own account and deleting them from the inbox when you are sure you have secure copies. See if the inbox will then load the previous months.

Check the "sent" folder, too. Typically there are fewer sent messages so you might see all of them, and many of these will have a record of the original message that is being replied to.

If you have a death certificate you can probably get access to the emails from the provider, as well as Facebook etc.

Not "probably" but "possibly". The email providers do not lightly breach the deceased's privacy, not even to a spouse.

This is Gmail's policy, and it is likely that others are similar:


Accessing a deceased person's mail

If an individual has passed away and you need access to the contents of his or her email account, in rare cases we may be able to provide the Gmail account content to an authorized representative of the deceased user. We extend our condolences and appreciate your patience and understanding throughout this process.

At Google, we�re keenly aware of the trust users place in us, and we take our responsibility to protect the privacy of people who use Google services very seriously. Any decision to provide the contents of a deceased user�s email will be made only after a careful review, and the application to obtain email content is a lengthy process. Before you begin, please understand that Google may be unable to provide the Gmail account content, and sending a request or filing the required documentation does not guarantee that we will be able to assist you. If you are the authorized representative of a deceased user and wish to proceed with an application to obtain the contents of a deceased user�s Gmail account, please carefully review the following information regarding our two stage process...

http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=14300

I'm not seeing where to go to ask for a password reminder on the iPad?? I tried using the "forgotten your password?" feature on my PC Hotmail but his secret question for that email account is "Grandfather's Occupation?" and I gave the right answer but it doesn't match the answer that he gave.

He had two grandfathers, remember. Try the other one.

Have you tried any of the other suggestions? How about deleting some stuff from the inbox, having copied it first?

I tried deleting lots of emails but it hasn't made it load any more.

H had always said that he was only interested in his father's family history and had no interest in his mother's side. I think that would have been the grandfather he referred to in the secret question but I don't know his maternal grandfather's occupation anyway. I also can't think of any excuse for asking his family this random question out of the blue, especially since I am in very infrequent contact with them.

is the device using internet explorer? if so try downloading iepassview see what passwords come up.

It uses Safari.