My Inbox compacted yesterday and I lost all incoming messages since January 27, 2005. How can I recover them? Chris

"Christian Seger" wrote in message
...
My Inbox compacted yesterday and I lost all incoming messages since January
27, 2005. How can I recover them? Chris

Don't store messages in the Inbox. It is the folder most apt to be
corrupted. As soon as you read them move them to user created folders.
Then compact the Inbox regularly.

Go to Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder and write down where OE
is storing its data.
Close OE.
Go there with Windows Explorer and copy Inbox.dbx to an empty Windows
folder. With Win2K, WinXP and Win2K3 it will be a hidden file.

You can use either of these tools to extract the messages from the old DBX
file:

DBXtract ($5): http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/ although this tool is faster
and better:
DBXpress: ($25) http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx
Do NOT extract to the desktop!

The messages can be dragged from a Windows folder back into an OE folder in
OE's Folder List.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, OE/WM
Please reply in newsgroup.

Frank,

I had a similar issue - lost about a year's worth of inbox messages, and did
a little digging only to discover OE only allows a max inbox size of 2gb.
Will the utility you suggest also recover messages if I've gone over the 2gb
limit? If so, should I follow the same procedures you suggested for
Christian? Any other suggestions or warnings?

Thanks
Mike

"Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, OE/WM" wrote:

"Christian Seger" wrote in message
...
My Inbox compacted yesterday and I lost all incoming messages since January
27, 2005. How can I recover them? Chris

Don't store messages in the Inbox. It is the folder most apt to be
corrupted. As soon as you read them move them to user created folders.
Then compact the Inbox regularly.

Go to Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder and write down where OE
is storing its data.
Close OE.
Go there with Windows Explorer and copy Inbox.dbx to an empty Windows
folder. With Win2K, WinXP and Win2K3 it will be a hidden file.

You can use either of these tools to extract the messages from the old DBX
file:

DBXtract ($5): http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/ although this tool is faster
and better:
DBXpress: ($25) http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/Default.aspx
Do NOT extract to the desktop!

The messages can be dragged from a Windows folder back into an OE folder in
OE's Folder List.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, OE/WM
Please reply in newsgroup.

"mikeg" wrote in message
...
Frank,

I had a similar issue - lost about a year's worth of inbox messages, and
did
a little digging only to discover OE only allows a max inbox size of 2gb.
Will the utility you suggest also recover messages if I've gone over the
2gb
limit? If so, should I follow the same procedures you suggested for
Christian? Any other suggestions or warnings?

irony
It's nice of MS to warn us, isn't it.
/irony

There are two utilities at http://www.oehelp that can do it:
DBXtract ($5)
DBXpress ($25)
Both will do it, but DBXpress is faster and probably worth the extra
expense. Either one may take days to finish the job on 2 GB.

In the future, don't store messages in the default OE folders. Move them to
user created folders and compact regularly. And don't put too much in any
one folder. I usually like to keep it to less that a thousand messages for
easy in finding messages. 100 MB should probably be considered the maximum
workable size.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Please reply in newsgroup. Do NOT send email.