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Outlook Express Problems: My folders are empty, corrupted or just not working - what do I do?

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Summary: Outlook Express Problems, including folder corruption, can manifest in several ways. I've found a good article on Outlook Express folder corruption, and steps to take to avoid, and recover from it.

I use Outlook Express and all of a sudden all sorts of odd things are happening. A bunch of my email disappeared, my sent mail isn't being saved to the sent folder, more. I think my folders have become corrupt. What should I do?

I'm not going to answer your question.

Instead, I'm going to point you at someone else who's already written a very thorough article on the causes of, and solutions to, folder corruption in Outlook Express.

The Other E-Mail Threat: File Corruption in Outlook Express is an article on microsoft.com by Tom Koch that goes into a fair amount of detail discussing Outlook Express folders, folder corruption and what you should, and should not, be doing.

Of particular note is the fact that the cause of most corruption in OE is the first email threat: viruses. Not the viruses themselves, but rather the anti-virus software that we all use to prevent viruses from spreading. Yes, if not configured properly, anti-virus software can cause your Outlook Express folders to become corrupt.

"...if not configured properly, anti-virus software can cause your Outlook Express folders to become corrupt."

One thing that you'll want to pay attention to, well before you have any problem, is this phrase from the article; one of the steps in recovering from corruption:

Copy the latest backup of the DBX file from your backup media into the Store Folder.

You do perform regular backups of your computer, don't you? Backups that include your mail folders? If not, start now before you have a problem.

In fact, backing up is step #9 in the article's Ten Steps of Prevention:

9. Backup your entire Store Folder on a regular basis.

Armed with a good backup strategy in place, Tom's article will help recover many forms of Outlook Express folder corruption.

Related:

Article 10594 | Posted August 6, 2006

Recent Comments

While am Forwarding Any Mails Through,Some Sysmbols are attached on the mails,i found its a virus.How i can resolved the problem without losing any mails.

Posted by: Libin Mathew at March 20, 2008 08:31 PM

I have a work colleague who also faced a recent problem on some missing folders from Outlook Express.

When comparing the system folders in Outlook Express and the folders revealed by a free File Recovery Program, it showed that those missing folders were deleted but still remained in the Outlook Express system folders.

I attempted to recover one folder to check the contents, with the help of another paid software to recover corrupted .dbx files. It seems the contents of the .dbx file do not belong to the expected contents of the folder.

I suspect that this is a serious problem with Outlook Express 6.

Posted by: Andrew Yew at March 28, 2008 08:46 AM

hello,
I have a problem with Outlook Express. I use it with my gmail account and it was working fine until few days ago. it started sending the mails but keeping them in outbox. no matter how many times I send them, they are still in outbox. please help.
c.

Posted by: cristian at May 6, 2008 02:04 AM

when double click a message is not open

it show corrupted file please reinstall

Posted by: umeshj at May 31, 2008 05:40 AM

All of a sudden I have some type of corruption in my Outlook Express folders. I cannot delete files from the inbox to deleted - once I get them in deleted there seems to be no problem, but I cannot get them into deleted. Doesnt' make any difference what type eml - some contain attached files, some do not... most do... but I cannot delete them - period. I tried to 'move' them from the in-box to the deleted folder... would not move. I do have one eml in the folder that I believe started the entire problem - and if I even click on it, Outlook Express locks and I have to exit... but soon my mail folder will be so full I won't be able to receive more.
Any suggestions?
Frustrated Grammy
Diane S Sanfilippo

Posted by: Diane S Sanfilippo at June 16, 2008 01:06 AM

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

YES! In fact, if you'll read the article you just commented
on, it's really clear about pointing out another article
that should help you.

Leo


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Posted by: Leo at June 17, 2008 04:09 PM

no matter how I try to create an account with outlook express I can not suceed. I'm always getting error messages everytime I try

Posted by: sal iozzia at June 21, 2008 06:24 PM

Dear Sir,

Before the installation of window I took back of Window outlook express. now when i change the path of the folder and give it the path where i stored them. only Inbox folder donot show me any mail although the size of the filder with "dbx" extension is 507MB. but not a single mail is shown in it.


Sir i tried to import them from file-->import-->messeges-->specifies path but it give me answer that no messeges found.

Posted by: Sajjad Ahmad at July 23, 2008 10:55 PM

Outbox in Outlook Express is sending message but it's stuck in my Outbox unless I delete it-it gets sent over and over again. I want to reconfigure Outlook Express's outbox maybe by renaming it etc. How do I do that? Thanks Leo

Posted by: Walter Rubin at August 4, 2008 10:15 AM

in - in box.,sent items full discription of message is not appering . how we have to resolve ?

Posted by: sanjay at August 20, 2008 03:45 AM

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