Please help a dinosaur

[RP]

I have a Professional 2002 Windows XP Computer service pack 3. Last year I stopped deleting emails and now I cannot delete them at all. I have stopped receiving emails because there is no room to receive them. I have 16000 emails unread, please help

[Paul]

http://www.cdrlabs.com/forums/where-are-outlook-express-files-located-t25656.html

C:\
Documents and Settings\
User Name\
Local Settings\
Application Data\
Identities\
{AAAAAAAA-BBBB-CCCC-DDDD-EEEEEEEEEEEE}\ <=== hexadecimal GUID???
Microsoft\
Outlook Express\

11/19/2018 09:31 AM 76,500 Deleted Items.dbx
11/19/2018 09:31 AM 76,500 Drafts.dbx
03/04/2020 01:28 PM 75,204 Folders.dbx
03/04/2020 01:28 PM 142,036 Inbox.dbx <=== "Welcome" message in here
03/04/2020 01:28 PM 9,656 Offline.dbx
09/16/2019 11:52 PM 76,500 Outbox.dbx
11/19/2018 09:31 AM 76,500 Sent Items.dbx
7 File(s) 532,896 bytes

Mine is pretty well empty.

*******

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlook_Express

"An open-source project called UnDBX was also created,
which seems to be successful in recovering corrupt databases.[9]"

"However, with the latest updates applied, Outlook Express now
makes backup copies of DBX files prior to compaction. They are
stored in the Recycle Bin. If an error occurs during compaction
and messages are lost, the DBX files can be copied from the
recycle bin."

I wonder if the problem is, there isn't any space left on your C: drive ???

What do the Properties of C: say ? Mine says:

Used space 56GB
Free space 17GB

Capacity 73GB

If I had the largest possible .dbx , maybe there simply isn't room
to be making safety backup copies during compaction ?

There's a picture here, of a too-big Inbox. Well, now, that
isn't exactly a big file. Using other emailing methods, some
individuals have managed to blow past 25GB to 35GB worth of
email. Titanic proportions... The piddly .dbx format stops
at 2,147,423,232 bytes or so, only 2GB.

https://www.freeviewer.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/6-1.png

AskLeo says the "format is brittle". But this is the way it is
traditionally with database files. How many times did we need
databases repaired at work, because of size limitations ? Too many
times.

Linux has "undbx" as a package, but this is half a solution, in
that it will give you a folder full of .eml . Which might be fine
if you planned to import the stuff into another tool. Does
Outlook Express pull .eml into a database ? Then you might be
able to craft a repair. Make a new box, drag and drop the .eml
files into the new box.

Here, you can see that "undbx" has recovered the "one" welcome
email message in an unused OutlookExpress directory. OS used
is Mint Xfce 18.3 or so (others are likely to have undbx too).

https://i.postimg.cc/BQQbvkgH/undbx-convert-dbx-to-eml.gif

That's WinXP as the main OS, Oracle VirtualBox (free) hosting
a Linux virtual machine, and me using a package in Linux to
do the recovery. While the source code for undbx is available,
and it could be compiled for Windows, I just flip over to Linux
and do the export operation there.

That reminds me, I'm past due backing up my system partition :-)

*******

Most every question and answer on this topic, involves aggressive
advertising of obsolete/relic software. Anyone who is enamored
of Outlook Express charms, knows the importance of maintenance,
care, and feeding. Just as I use various methods to fix
screwups in Thunderbird :-( I don't even know what the
Outlook Express screen looks like.

Paul