Do not archive mail on default OE folders. They will eventually
become corrupted. Create your own user defined folders for storing
mail and move your mail to them. Empty Deleted Items folder
regularly.

After you are done, follow up by compacting your folders manually
while working *offline* and do it often.

FileWork Offline (or double click Working Online in the Status Bar).
FileFolderCompact all folders.

In ToolsOptionsMaintenance: Uncheck Compact messages in background
and leave it unchecked.

Did you lose mail? Compacting folders frees up unneeded space. When
you delete an e-mail, it is still lurking around until you compact.
If you had a large amount of mail in a default folder, that is most
likely the problem.

This is the tool most recommended to backup everything in OE:
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/backup/

This tool will retrieve lost mail, but probably won't after a
compaction:

DBXtract: {Cost: $5.00}
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx

Help for DBXtract:
www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/

Hope this at least gets you started.
--
Bruce Hagen
~IB-CA~



"Rockfest70" wrote in message
om...
I've always backed up my OE files by just making a copy of the OE
directory. But there's another option to compact mail. Here's the
instructions from OR Help

"To compact and back up e-mail folders
Select an e-mail folder.
On the File menu, point to Folder, and then click Compact.
To back up the folder, find the folder file, and then copy it to a
backup folder, floppy disk, or network drive. Outlook Express
e-mail
folders have a .dbx extension (for example, "Sent Items.dbx").
Notes

Some message files might be too large to back up onto a floppy
disk.
If you are using a program other than Outlook Express to send
e-mail
messages to newsgroups, check your e-mail program's documentation
for
information about compacting and deleting e-mail folders."

Unfortunately the instructions provide no options to name it, or
save
it to a directory of my choice... nor do they tell you anything
about
finding this damn compacted folder. It's not in my OE folders and I
can't
find any new folders doing a search just having the date it was
created. There's no new dbx folders. At MS Help site they talk of
some
Outlook programs creating a .pst file but I'm not sure that applies
to
OE and a search reveals no pst files on my HD.

QUESTION 1: So where is the compacted file I made?

QUESTION 2: I remember once finding an option that I could store
my OE mail where ever I wanted... as opposed to the default
directory.
I'd like to save OE mail in the My Documents folder for easier
backup.
But I've never seen that option again. Anyone know anything about
it?
Was I dreaming?