OE6-Empty Inbox

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jwax
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OE6-Empty Inbox

Post by jwax »

In XP Home, Outlook Express 6, I suddenly saw an empty "No items to display" message where my many emails usually are. Where'd they go? Must I buy recovery software to get those emails back? And, what made them disappear in the first place?
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gerty
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Re: OE6-Empty Inbox

Post by gerty »

I'd try a "system restore" and go back a day or so..
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jwax
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Re: OE6-Empty Inbox

Post by jwax »

Thanks gerty, but that didn't help.
I found out that not only does your "Sent Items" folder have a 2 GB limit, so does your Inbox. Once you hit that limit, without warning, bad things happen.
Had to go into the "Store Folder", and remove the Inbox.dbx folder to a safe other place (external hard drive) for safekeeping, and then close Outlook Express. Next time OE opens, it creates a new "Inbox" folder, is empty, and I'm good for another 2 GB!
I think I'll switch to "Outlook", since it has better management of folder sizes.
Or, better yet, might just get a Mac! :shock:
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haklesup
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Re: OE6-Empty Inbox

Post by haklesup »

THere are utilities that can read, repair and edit those DBX files that make up the email boxes. Just search on "repair DBX" or "repair Email Box" and you'll find lots of them

What you did was most likely the only thing you could have done. I had a few get close or just over the limit, I was able to remove some messages but some of the boxes I sent them to got full or nearly so. I can still see those emails but I can't move or delete them anymore. I didn't bother to try and repair those folders as they were annual archive folders 2008, 2009 etc.

Just sorting by sender and deleting SPAM recovered over half the folder. (at work I delete spam as it arrives but at home I just archive my work emails en mass. I often forget to flush the spam from the server before going home for the day)

You can force Outlook experss to compact the folders from the tools options menu. You should do this after moving a bunch of emails around otherwise it will make you do it anyway after 100 runs of the program anyway.

BTW, I figured out why Outlook Express wanted me to Compact messages so often (more than once a day). It seems that the MS search optimizer increments the compact check count every time it scans the DBX files which is multiple times per hour. It can fool the system into thinking you opened Outlook 100 times in less than a day. Solution was to turn off the search indexer from the control panel "indexing Options". This is also another area that can needlessly slow your PC, If you don't often use the search tool on your PC, you don't need to be indexing your files for faster searching.
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jwax
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Re: OE6-Empty Inbox

Post by jwax »

I can't find that box to uncheck for "Indexing Options" hakelsup. Could you show me the way?
I'm either going to Outlook, or do as Google has done, and ban Windows from the premises! :mad:
http://www.mns.co.uk/012115141.html
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haklesup
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Re: OE6-Empty Inbox

Post by haklesup »

It's right on the control panel (classic view) called "Indexing Options" but you may not have it if you did not let windows update your search tool. If you get a blue and white "windows Search" window when you choose Search from the start menu , you have the latest. If your search window still has the puppy (AKA Search Companion), it is the old version and may not have auto search indexing anyway.

I thought Outlook used the same DBX files as Outlook express unless you install an exchange server or something like that. Not really necessaryunless you are sharing an address book or calandar
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jwax
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Re: OE6-Empty Inbox

Post by jwax »

Outlook uses the .pst extension for emails.
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