Tools | Options | Maintenance | Clean Up Now only does newsgroups. Compact
as follows and you'll see the dbx files reduce in size.

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.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Walter R." wrote in message
...
At the end of each month I make an image of my system. (Acronis)

In preparation, I get rid of temp files and other unneeded stuff that has
accumulated during the month.

I then clean out the Outlook express files in Options Maintenance.

I then clean up the files in Outlook Express, leaving only one month of
messages: Deleted files, Inbox and Sent items

However, when in look in the OE folder in Doc. & Settings, all the dbx
folders that I cleaned up still show many MB of messages. E.g. Deleted
files still shows 37 MB of deleted messages although the folder in Outlook
Express is empty. These files keep getting larger and thus increase the
size of my images.

How can I clean up all of the content of the dbx files? I know, I could
dispose of the deleted files by deleting the dbx folder. OE will then make
a new deleted folder when I open up OE the next time. But, I do not want
to delete the Inbox folder or the Sent Items Folder because I lose all
recent messages.

?

--
Walter
www.rationality.net
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