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Windows Forum / Outlook Express / OE 5.x / October 2008retrieving lost emails after compacting outlook express v 6
Today i performed the compacting function of my outlook express. Upon re-opening outlook express my sent folder no longer has a batch of email from december 07 until lunchtime today. Does anyone know how to retrieve these ? On a side note not sure if related but after the compacting my recycle bin was full of .bak files all of which were named after my subsidiary folders within outlook. Any help advice much appreciated ? The BAK files your OE folders before compacting. They are copied there as a precaution in case something goes wrong with the compacting. 1) Look in OE at Tools, Options, Maintenance, Store Folder for the location of your Store Folder. Then close OE. 2) Go to Recycle Bin and restore the most recent Sent Items.bak file. That will put it in OE Store folder, but still as a BAK file. 3) Open the Windows File Explorer and look at the store folder you found in step 1. (You may need to enable the the display Hidden and System files in Tools, Folder Options, View as well as uncheck the option to Hide extensions of known file types. You should see both a Sent Items.dbx file as well as the Sent Items.bak. Rename the Sent Items.DBX to Sentold.dbx and then rename Sent Items.Bak to Sent Items.DBX. When you open OE, your Sent Items messages should be restored.  SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > Today i performed the compacting function of my outlook express. Upon > re-opening outlook express my sent folder no longer has a batch of [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > Any help advice much appreciated ? I lost a year's supply of inbox mails after compacting. Your post saved me. Many thanks > The BAK files your OE folders before compacting. They are copied there > as a precaution in case something goes wrong with the compacting. [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > > > > Any help advice much appreciated ? You are welcome and thanks for posting back. SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > I lost a year's supply of inbox mails after compacting. Your post > saved me. [quoted text clipped - 37 lines] >> > >> > Any help advice much appreciated ? Your post was extremely helpful, but for some reason when I found the emails for the folder that I thought I had lost, I lost the all the new emails from today, where would I find those? > You are welcome and thanks for posting back. > [quoted text clipped - 39 lines] > >> > > >> > Any help advice much appreciated ? The most recent BAK file will have messages up to the last time you did a compact. Any messages received between that compact and when you restored the BAK file won't be there. Assuming this problem was with your Sent Items as the example was and that you had renamed it to Sentold.dbx, then do the following 1) Create a new folder under Local Folders in OE. Call it for example Restore. Click on the folder. It should be empty (no messages displayed) 2) Close OE. 3) Go to the store folder as used before and delete the Restore.DBX (or whatever you called the folder). NOTE: The DBX file should be approximately 59 KB if it is empty. If larger, you have the folder file. 4) Rename Sentold.dbx file to Restore.DBX (or whatever file you deleted in step 3. 5) Open OE. The Restore folder should now have all the messages that were there before you did the original restore of the BAK file. You can then copy the most recent messages from this folder to current Sent Items folder. When you happy that you have everything you can delete the Restore folder in OE. SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > Your post was extremely helpful, but for some reason when I found the > emails [quoted text clipped - 51 lines] >> >> > >> >> > Any help advice much appreciated ? Mike, The information you have providedis quite useful. I have a related question that I would appreciate your insight on. I had a Local folder called House in OE 6.0 that is no longer showing up. I do see it as House.dbx in my Store location (size 1278 kb, last update 5/28/08) I accidentally may have in the past 2 months hit 'yes' to the compact pop up & then interrupted in the middle (I don't remember for sure). I do know that I emptied my Recycle Bin a few days ago so there are no *.bak files in there to restore. Is there any way to at least get what is in House.dbx back in Outlook Express? I'll take what I can get. Thanks in advance for any help, Jill > The most recent BAK file will have messages up to the last time you did > a compact. Any messages received between that compact and when you [quoted text clipped - 74 lines] > >> >> > > >> >> > Any help advice much appreciated ? If you have the DBX file but OE is not showing it as existing, then you have a somewhat different problem. The folders.dbx file is what tracks the other DBX files. What you can do is create a new folder with a different name. For example call it House2. The access the folder in OE. There will be nothing there. Close OE and then in the store folder delete the House2.dbx file. If should be about 59 KB in size for being an empty OE folder. If it's larger than that, don't delete it, you have the wrong folder. Then rename House.dbx to House2.dbx. When you open OE it should show the messages in the House2 folder. If you still have problems, you'll need to run some recovery utilities on the DBX file. DBXtract - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx DBXpress - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx DBXtend - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtend/Default.aspx OEX Enhancements - Import/Export/Resend/Duplicates/Attachments, etc. http://www.oehelp.com/OEX/Default.aspx SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > Mike, The information you have providedis quite useful. > [quoted text clipped - 116 lines] >> >> >> > >> >> >> > Any help advice much appreciated ? Splendid!! It fixed the problem. Thanks so much!!!! > If you have the DBX file but OE is not showing it as existing, then you > have a somewhat different problem. The folders.dbx file is what tracks [quoted text clipped - 138 lines] > >> >> >> > > >> >> >> > Any help advice much appreciated ? You are welcome and thanks for posting back. SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > Splendid!! It fixed the problem. Thanks so much!!!! > [quoted text clipped - 166 lines] >> >> >> >> > >> >> >> >> > Any help advice much appreciated ? Hi, I just tried your solution and it worked. Thanks! It saved us a bunch of trouble as this was my boss's computer. But here's a note. I noticed that for the folder that needed restoring, the old .bak file was larger than the current .dbx file. I'm not sure if that's true for all situations. Before restoring the emails, we were only missing about 20 most recent days of emails out of a total of over 2 years worth. The solution didn't cause me to lose any emails since we noticed the problem and searched for a solution quickly. Hopefully that information is useful to someone else. Thanks again! Dear Micheal, I found your contact from the microsoft communities. I was searching in google on how to retrieve lost emails on Outlook express. My problem is this : I have about 39 folders on my OE local folders. Today strangely when i accessed some folders, almost 9 of them had no mails inside. i lost all the mails in them. Not knowing what to do next, and fearing i might loose all my official mails of past 1 year, i tried taking a back up and in that attempt i compacted the OE all folders.,which after reading your postnow, i understand was a mistake to do. All the 9 folders which are empty had lots of mails in them. I restored all the .bak files from the recycle bin to the store folder. and tried renaming them as explained above. i still couldnt get back the lost files. Is there still hope ? How large are the files? Any "empty" DBX file is about 59 KB. If larger than that, there are likely some messages in it. Depending on how often you do compacts and how large your recycle bin is, you might older BAK files in the recycle bin. But they wouldn't have any messages newer than the date on them. There are some recovery utilities that might be able to recover some of your messages. DBXtract - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx DBXpress - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx DBXtend - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtend/Default.aspx SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > Dear Micheal, > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > Is there still hope ? The BAK file in the recycle bin is a copy of the DBX file before compacting. So it often would be larger than the DBX file you are replacing. SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > Hi, > [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > Thanks again! Hi, yesterday my outlook started to compact all the folders. It finished without problem but I don't have email from may to now (August). I don't have bak files in the recicly bin and DBXtract show the same email I can read in Outlook. Any help will be wellcome. Thnks for this great log. RG > The BAK file in the recycle bin is a copy of the DBX file before > compacting. So it often would be larger than the DBX file you are [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > > > > Thanks again! What version of Windows do you have? The update for OE to copy files to the Recycle bin before compacting came out over 6 months ago for XP SP2. If you are running an older version of Windows, such as Win98, I don't believe that update is available. And I'm guessing that you haven't made any manual backups. In that case, about your only hope is trying this program which MIGHT be able to recover SOME of your missing messages. DBXpress - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > Hi, > [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] >> > >> > Thanks again! I have XP Pro SP2 but the recycle bin is empty. I have tried with undelete programms but the baks have gone. You right, no backups at this time.. > What version of Windows do you have? The update for OE to copy files to > the Recycle bin before compacting came out over 6 months ago for XP SP2. [quoted text clipped - 50 lines] > >> > > >> > Thanks again! The update for creating the BAK files in the recycle bin came out after SP2. If you haven't visited Windows Update recently, you may not have the latest version. SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > I have XP Pro SP2 but the recycle bin is empty. I have tried with > undelete [quoted text clipped - 66 lines] >> >> > >> >> > Thanks again! It could be. Any chance to recover the lost emails? Thnks > The update for creating the BAK files in the recycle bin came out after > SP2. If you haven't visited Windows Update recently, you may not have [quoted text clipped - 70 lines] > >> >> > > >> >> > Thanks again! If you don't have the BAK files and you didn't make any manual backups yourself, your only chance is a recovery utility that MIGHT recover SOME messages. DBXpress - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > It could be. Any chance to recover the lost emails? Thnks > [quoted text clipped - 84 lines] >> >> >> > >> >> >> > Thanks again! I had the compact screen come up and so i hit yes. Now i have lost email folders and alot of emails. My recycle bin is set to delete files auto so no bak files are in there or in the stored file. However the missing folders are in the stored file but i can not import them back? " If you are seeing a single DBX file for a folder (e.g. just the Inbox.dbx for the Inbox folder), then there is nothing to import. OE is already using it, and the file is likely corrupted. If you are also seeing a DBT file (e.g. Inbox.DBT) or more than one DBX file with a number included (e.g. Inbox(1).DBX and Inbox(2).DBX), then it's possible that one files MIGHT have SOME of your messages and could be imported. How to import a single mail folder (*.dbx) http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/how.htm#importdbx For an alternate description, see the last paragraph here: http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx However, if none of those are available, and you don't have any manual backups, about all you can try is some recovery utilities on the existing DBX files. DBXtract - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx DBXpress - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx DBXtend - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtend/Default.aspx SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > I had the compact screen come up and so i hit yes. Now i have lost [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > in the stored file but i can not import them back? > " > The BAK files your OE folders before compacting. They are copied there > as a precaution in case something goes wrong with the compacting. [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > > > > Any help advice much appreciated ? Thanks to this post.. It really helps me retrieve those messages after compacting ... really saves trouble.. Hi Michael, this worked perfectly - thank you. > The BAK files your OE folders before compacting. They are copied there > as a precaution in case something goes wrong with the compacting. [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > > > > Any help advice much appreciated ? You are welcome and thanks for posting back. SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > Hi Michael, this worked perfectly - thank you. > [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] >> > >> > Any help advice much appreciated ? Thanks Michael - I managed to recover my folders and some of my messages using your advice. What can I do where there are no .bak files for the .dbx files or where there is more than one file with the same name except for a number in brackets eg. Inbox (1).dbx and Inbox (2).dbx? Both contain a large amount of messages going by the file size. Changing the name of one excludes the other from Outlook Express. When OE gets into trouble with a DBX file it creates a new one with a number added. The highest numbered one is most likely the most recent. Look at the date on the file to be sure. The non-current ones are likely corrupted. If you want to make both of them available to OE, you can try a variation of this procedure: How to import a single mail folder (*.dbx) http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/how.htm#importdbx For an alternate description, see the last paragraph here: http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > Thanks Michael - I managed to recover my folders and some of my > messages [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > the other > from Outlook Express. Hi, You seem to have helped a lot of people and.. I have a similar problem with lost emails from outlook express ( 2 months worth dissapeared from inbox yesterday after I must have activated compacting) and I've been trying to follow the solution but.... There's nothing in my recycle bin but I do have a deleteditems.dbx file which looks about the right time in my email storage location (about 47,000kb). Anything I can do with this to get them back? Best, Richard > When OE gets into trouble with a DBX file it creates a new one with a > number added. The highest numbered one is most likely the most recent. [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > the other > > from Outlook Express. To have the BAK files in the recycle bin, you have to running Windows XP and be reasonably up-to-date on your Windows updates. The Deleted Items.dbx file contains messages that you deleted. If the problem is due to compacting, the missing messages won't be there. If you weren't making backups of your data and you don't have the BAK files in the recycle bin, then your only option is to try a recovery utility. DBXtract - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx DBXpress - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx DBXtend - http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtend/Default.aspx SignatureMike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm > Hi, > You seem to have helped a lot of people and.. [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] >> > the other >> > from Outlook Express. > Hi, > You seem to have helped a lot of people and.. [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] >> > the other >> > from Outlook Express. Move the restored DBX (BAK) file to a different Windows folder. Rename it to Restore1.dbx Open OE. Make an OE folder named Restore1. Open that folder (Restore1). Close OE. In OE's store folder delete Restore1.dbx. Move the one you renamed back to OE's store folder. Open OE and open Restore1 in OE. SignatureFrank Saunders MS-MVP IE,OE/WM Do not reply with email |
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