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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?
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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.
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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.
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.
Article C2746 - August 6, 2006
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
Outlook Express - This just started. When I hit send/receive the "box" has ALWAYS dropped down under the tab to upper center of screen. Several days ago the "box" appeared on upper left of screen. Tech fixed it and told me if it happened again I should call Dell. Happened again - 2 days later. This time lower right corner. One person at Dell said OE is corrupted. Dell tech who work on it said no problem - it's fine and charged me $89. He had no explanation as to why the "box" kept moving. Said it was fine. Who to believe? Why does box keep moving. Computer is 6 years old.
Posted by: Kris at February 20, 2011 4:08 PMI unfroze the Outlook Express "In" box
Posted by: Tom Potter at August 3, 2011 6:30 PMby simply dragging all of the email in the "In" box
to a new folder. ( Actually an "Old Email" folder
that I use to keep my "In" box folder uncluttered. )
Message "this message was not downloaded" when opening an e-mail in the "Inbox" that has previosly been downloaded and viewed and was perfectly intact with attachment.
Posted by: Sid at September 26, 2011 3:56 AMIn OE my mail is stuck there in my Outbox Folder! SEND no longer works! I can receive mail but not send. Has OE become corrupted? I've had Virgin media check all my settings......everything...for 3 hrs! I've removed Kaspersky IS2011 + Mailwasher! I've spent 4 days searching the Internet for clues. I now have Virgin Media Security so I'm safe but what can I do? I can access my Web-based a/c but I want to use OE. I am feeling quite desperate.
Posted by: liz G at December 21, 2011 12:38 PM@liz
Posted by: Mark J at December 21, 2011 2:04 PMOutlook Express is no longer supported by Microsoft and has so many problems that it's best to switch to an other email client such as Thunderbird.
Why Outlook Express Must Die