Re: Outlook Express - deleting messages and then compacting has not reduced dbx file size

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

> My emails are important...

Uh-huh.

First of all, if INBOX.DBX is over 2GB, you're *extremely* lucky that OE
even opens!

Secondly, you should never use any default OE folder (i.e., Inbox; Sent
Items; Deleted Items) for archiving messages.

Third, you may not be compacting all OE folders properly.

1a. Move any messages that you want to keep out of Inbox, Sent Items and
Deleted Items folders and into other local OE folders you've created for
archiving (saving) such messages.

1b. Compact all OE folders manually
(http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact).

1c. Do NOT empty the Recycle Bin!!

2. Write down the location of your identity's store
(http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#storemain).

NB: In WindowsXP, the OE user files (DBX and WAB) are marked as hidden
by default. To view these files in Windows Explorer, you must enable Show
Hidden Files and Folders via Start > Control Panel > Folder Options > View
(cf. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial62.html).

3a. Close OE.

3b. Repeat: Close OE.

4. In Windows Explorer, navigate to your store folder, find & delete the
files Inbox.dbx, Outbox.dbx, Sent Items.dbx, and Deleted Items.dbx.

To avoid such problems in the future:

- Don't use Inbox or Sent Items to archive messages. Move them to local
folders created for this purpose.

- Empty Deleted Items folder daily.

- Frequently perform a manual compact of all OE folders while "working
offline". More at http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm

- Do not shut down your machine while Windows is automatically compacting
your message store.

- Disable email scanning by your anti-virus application. It can cause
corruption (i.e., loss of messages), it provides no additional protection,
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/nav.nsf/docid/2002111812533106

PS: Setting up Outlook Express to access Microsoft newsgroups
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

==
OE-specific newsgroup:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general

~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002

Rupert wrote:
> My emails are important. I copied my Inbox to an archive subdirectory.
> Then I deleted from my Inbox all messages from 2002-2006. Then I
> compacted all files offline. The Inbox dbx file is still over 2gb.
> deleting all those messages and compacting the file doesn't seem to have
> affected the size of the file. Can someone help me reduce the size of
> my Inbox dbx file?
>
> I deleted messages by pressing the delete key. Maybe I should have
> right-clicked the messages and chosen delete. If that's the problem,
> can I fix that?

[krokodylowy]

On 19 Lip, 00:39, "PA Bear [MS MVP]" <PABear...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > My emails are important...
>
> Uh-huh.
>
> First of all, if INBOX.DBX is over 2GB, you're *extremely* lucky that OE
> even opens!

(...)

>

Wow, very excellent response ... but why Outlook Express do not do
that amazing job?

It looks like Microsoft arrogance. Hundred millions of XP users use OE
and all got the same problems. Size of dbx files grows up to hundreds
megabytes or few gigabytes and OE stop work, hangs or got unexpected
behaviour like do not show new messages.

The problem is - OE got some dummy options that nothing do, like
"delete mail from boxes/folders" or options from Options/Tools/
Maintenance/Clean now, Compact, Delete news or Reset.

All above operations should decrese size of dbx files but don't do
that!

So the question is - How to delete old mails with dbx's decreasing?

[Bruce Hagen]

"krokodylowy" <kroko...@wp.pl> wrote in message
news:0d2bc976-8c72-47b5...@a70g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...

Please include all previous messages in your replies. It makes things much
easier for us to follow. Thank you.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Clean Up Now is /only/ for newsgroups. To
compact all your mail folders, do the following.

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.

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 & Restore:
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

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

[And then I read...]

Bruce Hagen wrote:
<snip>

> Please include all previous messages in your replies. It makes things much

> easier for us to follow. Thank you...

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

I covered most of this in the section "To avoid such problems in the future"
in my first reply to this thread.

OE Tools | Options | Maintenance | Delete read message bodies in newsgroups
=> If enabled, this option will delete any downloaded newsgroup messages but
it will not delete any headers.

OE Tools | Options | Maintenance | Clean Up Now => This only applies to
newsgroups.

The only way to decrease the size of a DBX file is to compact it. The only
way to decrease the size of all DBX files is to compact them all (ALT+F+F+F;
cf. http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact).
--

~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002

AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/

krokodylowy wrote:
<snip>