Do not delete the e-mail messages permanently

On sporadic occasions my deleted e-mail messages are deleted instead of moving to the folder "deleted".  They are not appearing in my trash, either.  This just started happening a few months ago.  I try to keep my "inbox" cleaned up, but don't necessarily want to delete my messages "deleted" until I had the time to scroll through them.

Using Outlook Express?

1: do not archive mail in the receipt or sent items box. Create your own user-defined folders and move messages you want to put in them. Empty the deleted items folder daily. Although the dbx files have a theoretical capacity of 2 GB, I recommend all a 300 MB max for less risk of corruption.

Information on the maximum size of the .dbx files that are used by Outlook Express:
http://support.Microsoft.com/?kbid=903095

2: after you're done, followed by compacting your folders manually while working * off * and do it often.

Click Outlook Express at the top of the the folder tree so no folders are open. Then: File | Work offline (or double-click on work online in the status bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything until the compacting is completed.

Bruce Hagen
MS - MVP October 1, 2004 ~ September 30, 2010
Imperial Beach, CA

Tags: Windows

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