Richard said Drag, not Defrag. I believe he was eluding to something like
this.

General precautions for Outlook Express:

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 & Resto
http://www.insideoutlookexpress.com/backup/

This is a great two click program:

Outlook Express Quick Backup (OEQB)
http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"walt" wrote in message
...
May sound dumb, but how do you 'defrag' all messages?

"Richard in AZ" wrote:

As for your second question, make a folder to store those reference
email. Then drag all messages
you want to save from your "Inbox" and "Sent Items" folders to the new
folder (Suggest a folder name
like "Save for Later") and delete all of the rest of the mail. Empty
your Deleted Items Folder
regularly.

"walt" wrote in message
...
Thank you for the speedy responce.

"PA Bear" wrote:

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

That being said, most of us would recommend that you disable NAV's
Email
Protection. It provides no additional protection, it may lead to loss
of
message, and even Symantec says it's not necessary:

QP
Disabling Email Scanning does not leave you unprotected against
viruses that
are distributed as email attachments. Norton AntiVirus Auto-Protect
scans
incoming files as they are saved to your hard drive, including email
and
email attachments. Email Scanning is just another layer on top of
this. To
make sure that Auto-Protect is providing the maximum protection, keep
Auto-Protect enabled and run LiveUpdate regularly to ensure that you
have
the most recent virus definitions.
/QP
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT...02111812533106

The Other E-Mail Threat: File Corruption in Outlook Express:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/...orruption.mspx
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.org/


walt wrote:
OK as if I wasn't confussed enough. Running Windows XP Home SP2. I
use
Norton Anti-Virus 2007. I must have about 1000 emails in Outlook
Express,
do not do any back-ups (didn't know you were supposed to back up
Outlook
Express). Now I read that you shouln't use anti-virus programs for
outlook
express? What would be your best suggestion for what I should do. I
know
that I need to do some house cleaning and delete a lot of emails,
but I
would also like to save some that I use for reference. Any
suggestions
would be appreciated. As of yet I have not had any problems with
Outlook
Express.