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Gene McGough - 31 Mar 2007 04:40 GMT

I have recently began losing messages from my Inbox. It involves both read
and unread, as well as old and new msgs. They don't appear in the Deleted
folder - totally gone. A couple of them I resent to myself from another
computer, and they disappeared a second time an hour or so after receipt.

Background: My mouse was becoming flakey in that the message list in the
upper panel would sometimes violently scroll from top to bottom. After one
of these episodes, a large number of msgs disappeared. I got a new mouse
yesterday and the scrolling problem is cured, but files still disappear
after receipt.

AVG has been told to leave the mail alone. My only rules are to color code
for source. All folders compacted. I have run AdAware and SpyBot.

My work-around for the moment is to manually move to another folder any
messages that I want to hang onto for a while.

Gene McGough

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Bruce Hagen - 31 Mar 2007 04:43 GMT

Your Inbox is probably bloated.

Do not archive mail in default OE folders. They will eventually become
corrupt. Create your own user defined folders for storing mail and move your
mail to them. Empty Deleted Items folder regularly. Keep user created
folders under 100MB, and Default folders as empty as is feasible.

After you are done, follow up by compacting your folders manually while
working *offline* and do it often.

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything until
the compacting is completed.

Turn off e-mail scanning in your anti-virus program. It is a redundant layer
of protection that eats up CPUs and causes a multitude of problems such as
time-outs and account setting changes. Your up-to-date A/V program will
continue to protect you sufficiently. For more, see:
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#3

In Tools | Options | Maintenance: Uncheck Compact messages in background and
leave it unchecked. {N/A if running XP/SP2}.

And backup often.

Backup & Restore:
http://www.insideoutlookexpress.com/backup/

This is a great two click program:

Outlook Express Quick Backup (OEQB)
http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx

Signature

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

>I have recently began losing messages from my Inbox. It involves both read
> and unread, as well as old and new msgs. They don't appear in the Deleted
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
>
> Gene McGough

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Gene McGough - 31 Mar 2007 05:16 GMT

OK. Looks like we are hitting a nerve here. I had looked at my folders in
Explorer earlier, but things didn't register. Even though I have been (not
often enough) moving things to my own folders, a recent surge of very large
messages kicked my Inbox over 200M!!.

I am guessing that all the "disappeared" files are still in the Inbox, but
right now it isn't displaying any.

Am I correct that the way to get a handle on this is to go to Explorer and
do some shuffling. Do I create a new folder in OE, then in Explorer, move
the contents of the Inbox to that new folder? Will that allow me to get to
the contents for some housecleaning?

Gene McGough

> Your Inbox is probably bloated.
>
[quoted text clipped - 49 lines]
> >
> > Gene McGough

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Bruce Hagen - 31 Mar 2007 05:27 GMT

Can you move messages out of the Inbox? Create a local folder of your own
and move messages to it.

Reboot and see if the *lost* messages are back in the Inbox. If not, close
OE and rename Inbox.dbx to Inboxold.dbx. If you have no messages you want to
retrieve then don't bother to rename the Inbox, just delete it.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the location of
your Outlook Express files. Press the Tab key to highlight the folder
location, then Ctrl+C. Close OE, then Start | Run | Ctrl+V will put the
location in the box - Click OK and you'll see the OE files. Otherwise, write
the location down and navigate to it in Windows Explorer.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB) are by default
marked as hidden. To view these files in Windows Explorer, you must enable
Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start | Control Panel | Folder Options
Icon | View, or in Windows Explorer | Tools | Folder Options | View.

Use one of these tools to retrieve the messages.

DBXtract:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx

DBXpress: {much faster for large files}
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx

Signature

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

> OK. Looks like we are hitting a nerve here. I had looked at my folders
> in
[quoted text clipped - 80 lines]
>> >
>> > Gene McGough

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Gene McGough - 31 Mar 2007 06:23 GMT

Now I have a grip on it. I had DBXpress from an earlier time. Best I can
tell, I have recovered all the contents of my Inbox, and for now it is split
into three new folders.

Renamed Inbox to InboxOld.
Used DBXpress to extract all the messages to individual files.
Drag-and-dropped the files into the new folders in OE.

Many thanks, Bruce. You are great.

Gene McGough

> Can you move messages out of the Inbox? Create a local folder of your own
> and move messages to it.
[quoted text clipped - 105 lines]
> >> >
> >> > Gene McGough

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Bruce Hagen - 31 Mar 2007 07:02 GMT

You're welcome & Glad to hear you are making progress.

Signature

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

> Now I have a grip on it. I had DBXpress from an earlier time. Best I can
> tell, I have recovered all the contents of my Inbox, and for now it is
[quoted text clipped - 139 lines]
>> >> >
>> >> > Gene McGough

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Spikey - 31 Mar 2007 16:26 GMT

> Now I have a grip on it. I had DBXpress from an earlier time. Best I can
> tell, I have recovered all the contents of my Inbox, and for now it is
> split
> into three new folders.

Just to add:-

I copy all my important emails to a folder in my docs (invoices etc). So
when I do my regular backup of my docs the emails are included in text
format. You can then access your emails without having to open them from OE
which is very handy if you need a copy just as OE has gone belly up.

:o)

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Gene McGough - 31 Mar 2007 16:53 GMT

Thanks, Spikey. Another look with a different twist at what we should be
doing is always helpful.

Gene

> > Now I have a grip on it. I had DBXpress from an earlier time. Best I can
> > tell, I have recovered all the contents of my Inbox, and for now it is
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
> :o)

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