Outlook Express Question for techi's

[andrew1]

can anyone explain exactly what happens to emails stored in files on the inbox/sent when they are ' compacted' by the system?

Where are they compacted to and do I still have simple access to them?

I haven't a clue and it'll be sure as fate that I'll need something and can't find it if it's sent to some distant space on the disc

Thanks

[Tezcatlipoca]

It's something of a misnomer. When you delete an email in Outlook Express, it is moved to the Deleted Items folder. The message disappears from its original folder, and when you empty the Deleted Items folder, it disappears from there, too.

In neither case is the message removed from the file on your disk immediately. Editing files for this is a slow process, and you'd have to wait or experience Outlook Express responding slowly whenever you deleted a couple of emails, 'deletion' merely hides the messages from view.

Of course, having all your deleted messages still on disk means a lot of space that can be reclaimed is wasted over time, and if Outlook Express has to keep track of too many obsolete messages, this itself can mean a slowdown of certain actions.
So Outlook Express tries to physically remove these deleted emails from time to time, which it calls 'compacting'.

Your non-deleted emails should not be touched, and will continue to be accessible as per usual. Note that Outlook may also try to archive your messages; which is different from compacting, and will result in older messages being removed to save space and placed into a separate archive folder.

Of course, most other email clients - such as Thunderbird - don't suffer from this and other the issues that plague Outlook/Express. If the compacting process is beginning to get irritating, I'd give consideration to running a different email client.

[andrew1]

Thanks for that. It doesn't irritate me no, but I was never sure quite what this did, but now you have explained it I know. What went through my mind was that I am one of those people that when I get emails I want to keep for a while I move them across into a folder and for example, In my Cabot Fan Club folder where we in the group investigate no end of dca's and exchange one hell of a lot of emails off forum, I have over 3500 messages which one day when I'm not so addicted to this forum I might go through and remove. I was concerned that the oldest ones, and some of those contain some very detailed info, might just get chopped off the end of the list, sort of ' oldest out first ' approach and they were automatically deleted. I realise it's not prudent to keep so many in one folder, but they can't get saved to a folder on the main software can they so have to sit there indefinitely unless I cut and past them.

Thanks for your help anyway, most appreciated.

[Tezcatlipoca]

No problem, although from what you've said, I'd advise (as with any important data) making a backup of your emails onto some kind of removable media (CD/DVD/whatever). Almost everyone forgets about backups when the PC is running fine, but things get rather more serious when - and not if - the PC fails...

For OE, this article will give you the particulars.

[andrew1]

That's really helpful thanks, can't rep you in the Bear Garden I'm afraid, but I never knew I could do that. the mbx files or whatever confuse a little, but I'll try and get my head around it, but it looks from this like I might have lost files when I upgraded OE at some distant date because I hadn't follwoed the procedures written here. No worries, I'll spend some time going over this and do as you suggest and get these saved elsewhere. As you say, it's only if things start to go pear shaped that panic sets in.. and it's not if - it's when. we all know it happens but get complacent.

Thanks very much.