- retreiving deleted email folders
- Posted by Danielle on March 7th, 2004
Does anyone know if and how you can recover deleted email
folders in Outlook express?
- Posted by Mike M on March 7th, 2004
How did you delete the files? From within Outlook Express or from Explorer?
If from Outlook Express have you closed Outlook Express since you deleted the
folders? If not, DO NOT as the underlying dbx files will still be present
until you close OE so make sure you copy them to another location before
closing Outlook Express. If you deleted them from in Outlook Express and have
since closed Outlook Express or deleted them using Explorer and have since
cleared your waste bin then you may have considerable difficulty in recovering
your lost files, all the more so the longer you continue to use your PC as the
likelihood increases that you will over write the file space that was used for
the files you want to try and recover.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP
mcmaltby@hotmail.com
Danielle <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
- Posted by Kath Adams on March 7th, 2004
Danielle wrote:
First of all, check under deleted items in OE for the folders. You can
just drag them back if you find them there.
If not, and you have not compacted since deleting the folders, you can
try the following :-
Tools>options>maintenance>store folder and note down the location.
Close OE.
Control panel>folder options>view and make sure there is a check against
"show hidden files and folders".
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the location you noted.
Move deleted items.dbx to another location (say the desktop) and use the
following (free)program on it. Recovered emails can be dragged back into
OE.
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx
--
Kath Adams
MS MVP - Windows (IE/OE)
- Posted by Mike M on March 7th, 2004
Kath,
Probably better IMO not to close OE as deleted folders often only get
physically deleted when OE is closed.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP
mcmaltby@hotmail.com
Kath Adams <KathAdams@mvps(nospam).org> wrote:
- Posted by Kath Adams on March 7th, 2004
Sorry, Mike, but I beg to differ. OE does not remove the deleted emails
until compaction takes place or until the deleted items folder is
deleted via Windows Explorer. Try it and see! I just moved a whole bunch
of unwanted emails into there, deleted them all so nothing was showing
in the deleted items folder, closed OE, then moved the deleted items
folder to my desktop, ran DBXtract in recover mode and got all 8 emails
back again.
Kath
Mike M wrote:
- Posted by Kath Adams on March 7th, 2004
PS.
Also, you can't really try and retrieve anything or move the folders
while OE is still open, which is why so many op's with corrupted
folders.dbx still have error messages, because they didn't close OE
first. The biggest problem by far with OE is that automatic compaction
is enabled by default. If your computer should crash, or your phone line
drop, or your power supply be interrupted while OE is busily compacting
files, the result can be devastating. The entire message store can
become corrupt, meaning you could lose all your mail messages.
Kath
Kath Adams wrote:
- Posted by Mike M on March 7th, 2004
Kath,
I beg to differ. Closing OE whether compaction has been run or not usually
results in the deletion of any deleted folders. Your test does not cover
this. Rather than delete the e-mails delete the folder as mentioned by the
original poster and then close OE. In most cases the associated dbx folder is
automatically deleted when OE closes. Remember we are talking folders not
their contents.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP
mcmaltby@hotmail.com
Kath Adams <KathAdams@mvps(nospam).org> wrote:
- Posted by Mike M on March 7th, 2004
Kath,
Please read the original problem and my reply. The problem is a deleted
FOLDER not a deleted E-MAIL. You have not covered that at all.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP
mcmaltby@hotmail.com
Kath Adams <KathAdams@mvps(nospam).org> wrote:
- Posted by Kath Adams on March 7th, 2004
If the folder has been moved to deleted items, and deleted items has not
been emptied, closing OE will not empty the deleted items folder, unless
"Empty messages from the deleted items folder on exit" has been enabled.
This is not the default option of OE and would be enabled by the op.
I take your point about it being a folder rather than individual emails.
Kath
Mike M wrote:
--
Kath Adams
MS MVP - Windows (IE/OE)
- Posted by Mike M on March 7th, 2004
Kath,
The Deleted Items folder, or rather Deleted Items.dbx has little to do with
the problem. As you know deleted folders and their contents don't get moved
to Deleted Items.dbx, instead folders.dbx is simply amended to thread the
deleted folder under Deleted Items. And yes the folder won't finally be
deleted until the user chooses to do so and even then the actual deletion of
the dbx file normally takes only place when the user closes OE. Hence my
original statement, that they should not close OE. In other words you can
delete a folder, either directly or via the Deleted Items folder and the
underlying dbx file is usually still present until the user closes OE.
Original question (in this news group) "recover deleted email folders" and in
windwsme.systemtools (which I appreciate you probably haven't seen) "how to
recover deleted email folders / dbx files?" From this I took it to mean that
the user had deleted the folder from within OE and could not recover it from
OE. Hence my comments.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP
mcmaltby@hotmail.com
Kath Adams <KathAdams@mvps(nospam).org> wrote:
