Outlook Express Ruined My Life

April 19, 2006 8:29 AM

My outlook express kept suggesting I "compact" deleted messages to save space. I finally acquiesced, and now the messages in my inbox and every deleted message from the last year are missing. Any idea whether they're recoverable?
posted by mert to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

While this likely won't help your current problem, here is some information about avoiding corruption problems with Outlook Express. I have succesfully used dbextract to get messages back from a corrupted dbx file.

I would point out that the very existance of that page is one thing that keeps me from using Outlook Express.

Good luck.
posted by fief at 10:04 AM on April 19, 2006

Thanks. What I gather from reading that is I'm fucked.
posted by mert at 10:25 AM on April 19, 2006

Here is a forum post that may help with your situation.
posted by fishfucker at 11:03 AM on April 19, 2006

Sorry to be so late to the party, but all 1314 messages disappeared from my OE Inbox. I know, I know, it serves me right for using OE, but I have reasons for using it.
I was a bit luckier than you were mert, - mine were in the Delete file, and my folders were still intact.
I had no idea how to move the messages back to Inbox, or even if that is possible. I was able to move the most important of them into folders, and cut and paste a few into Word. It took me about 6 hours.
posted by Cranberry at 11:19 PM on April 19, 2006