Outlook Express - Compacted Folders

[ockerb]

A friend mistakenly used the feature in OE to compress all folders. Questions: Where do all the emails go when this feature is used? Can they be uncompacted? and can the compacted emails be accessed? The is no archive folder in the folder list of her OE.
She is using Win XP SP2, any help with this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Ockerb

 

[rvnguy]

This normally used to create an archival backup of older mails. I am fairly certian that you must make a copy of these compacted files outtside of OE to perform any functions on them. Due to file locks when OE is open & using them.

See this link for How...you can forgo the CD/DVD step and just copy to another directory on a HD. Good Luck

http://www.freebits.co.uk/backoutlook.html

Hope this helps

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[ockerb]

thanks rvnguy for your speedy reply. My problem is all the emails on her computer are now missing after using the compact folders feature. She didn't mean to do it to all the folders just the deleted items folder. Now she needs the emails in her inbox and can't find them, any ideas?
Ockerb

 

[smah]

Compaction is supposed to remove the empty file space from the mail store database. It does not (read as: is not supposed to) remove messages. The behaviour that you're seeing is not really because the messages have been removed, but more likely that the database has been corrupted. This most often happens when the compaction process does not complete or is endend prematurely.

First, immediately search for all the *.dbx files on the computer and copy them to another folder to prevent any possible further corruption. When using the Windows search function, be sure to include hidden & sytem files in the search. Next, open OE & try to use OE's Import function to manually import from the files that you just copied. If that doesn't work, you'll probably want to try DBXtract, DBXpress, or OEX from

http://www.oehelp.com/

Steve

http://www.advancedheaters.com