Thanks again Bruce for the very informative reply. I will certainly start to
put some of the suggestions into practice to protect my OE message store. I
am also sure the information will be of use to others who have experienced
similar problems. While its true I don't spend time reading old e mails bit
its important for me to keep a large database to check some business or other
important details in a message or attachment. Sometimes, I will find a useful
piece of information that goes back many years.

I understand there is a new free e mail programme - Microsoft "Windows Live
Mail beta", however I really dont know if its message store is more stable or
practical than OE6 or whether OE6 message stores can be imported so I am of
the opinion to stick with OE6.

Kind Regards
Chris

"Bruce Hagen" wrote:

Bruce, not Bill. wink

The size of the message store is not a problem. It is the dbx files
themselves. The default folders, Inbox, Sent Items, etc., are more prone to
corruption than user created folders because they are accessed more often.

If your Inbox is 1GB, then I would start making more folders and moving
these messages to them. We usually suggest a 1MB max, but you should be OK
at 2MB especially if these are just for archiving, but 1GB is really asking
for trouble.

No need to go outside of OE unless you want to. Subfolders under the Inbox
are fine, as well as Sent Items.

Basically, the best practice when you get a message is to read it and either
delete it or move it.

Note that when you are done cleaning up these folders, you will need to
compact again as space taken up by messages is not reclaimed when you move
or delete them until you compact.

Send and Receive can be left checked it you remember to work offline when
you compact. That eliminates any new messages arriving.

As you did, unchecking e-mail scanning is important with OE. Among other
things, it has been responsible for wiping out entire message stores.

I'll go one step further. You would be doing yourself a favor if you got rid
of Norton completely. At the very least, think about doing it when your
subscription expires. Norton and McAfee have a long history of corrupting
OE. People can use it for years and then one day, usually after an update
from Norton, all hell breaks loose. You can have a perfectly good anti-virus
and save money at the same time.

I would suggest either Avast, (freeware), or NOD32, (not free).

In the case of Avast, choose Custom Installation and under Resident
Protection, uncheck: Internet Mail and Outlook/Exchange. (I use it myself).

Avast:
http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

NOD32:
http://www.eset.com/

Just out of curiosity, do you really read e-mail that is years old? I save
some classic jokes and the like, but not much more. Right now, my Inbox and
Sent Items are both less than 1,000KB and my entire message store is 246MB
total.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"Chris" wrote in message
...
Thanks for this useful information Bill. I certainly don't want to lose my
OE6 messages again in the future. I have turned off Norton e mail
scanning. I
have also turned off auto send and receive in case it accidentally
coincides
with compacting. At the moment my OE6 Store folder which I keep in My
documents is about 1.7 Gbt and my inbox.dbx is about 1Gbt, Sent.dbx about
300Mbt. After reading the notes some questions come to mind I need some
help
with please.

1- The guidelines mention "Do not archive mail in default OE
folders"...does
this mean do not archive the OE6 store folder in the default location in
Application data but somewhere else like my documents? Or does it mean
make
another folder in IE6 such as "Inbox back Up" and store them there
regardless
of where the folder is located?

2- Also the comments mention "Keep user created folders under 100MB, and
Default folders as empty as is feasible.". As my default Inbox.dbx is 1
Gbt
how would I reduce the size in practice? Is it better to make subfolders
under the inbox eg inbox 2005, Inbox 2006, Inbox 2007 etc to reduce the
size?
Or should I use another method?

Kind Regards
Chris

"Bruce Hagen" wrote:

Nice work, Chris.

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

And backup often.

Backup & Resto
http://www.insideoe.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


"Chris" wrote in message
...
Reading the other posts below was very helpful to me because the same
thing
happened to me yesterday... during compacting all folders my inbox got
corrupted and I lost 6 months worth of messages. I looked in the
recycle
bin
and found inbox.bak and restored it. It went to my IE6 store folder
which
I
have set to my documents from tools options. In the IE6 store folder I
renamed my corrupted inbox.dbx to old_inbox.dbx and renamed inbox.bak
to
inbox.dbx. This solved my problem and all the lost messages appeared up
to
the time inbox.bak was made. I then downloaded the latest messages from
my
server. I had to delete the file Pop3uidl.dbx so my POP 3 server would
download all my hotmail files again. Later I removed old_inbox.dbx from
the
store folder and put it somewhere else just in case I need to extract
some
message from it in the future. Also from now on I will select in
accounts/properties/advanced options to delete messages from server
after
7
or 14 days. This will mean that a recent 7 or 14 day back up of
messages
will
stay on the server for such emergencies. So if I back up my IE6 store
folder
every week I should be covered.

Kind Regards
Chris

"Oyster" wrote:

Hi Group;
Just happened, I lost all messages in my inbox from mid April '07 to
this
morning 11/16/07. Sent items file is still fine. Been having
problems
with OE the last few weeks. Sometimes it just stops working or
messages
are
temporarily lost. I shut it down and restart the program and the all
come
back. That's not working now. I am running OE6 on a Windows XP-Pro
machine. I have a POP server. Anything else anyone needs to know?
let
me
know. Also, recently for the last 2 weeks or so, I have been getting
the
notice to compress. I haven't done that yet.

Help.... Please....
Thanks,
Paul