Help! Missing a Folder from Outlook Express

March 29th, 2004, 11:38 am

Hi, just found this forum and I hope someone can help cause I'm out of ideas.

Ok, I noticed the other day that one of my email folders was missing in O.E. After looking through all of the other folders (thinking maybe it had inadvertently gotten moved to another folder), I did a System Restore (suggested by the Sony Support tech) since I did have some problems with OE and IE the night before. Unfortunately this did not solve the problem.

Next, I downloaded and ran a program that is supposed to restore deleted files. It found a folder called Deleted Items.dbx. I thought this might be what I needed since maybe in an attempt to delete an individual message I might have deleted the entire folder, and then emptied the Deleted Items folder (with this missing folder accidentally inside). The folder is 1.25 MB so I think it might contain my missing folder.

I copied the folder to my desktop then tried to import into O.E., but get the error message that a lot of people get. "No messages can be found in this folder or another application is running, etc."

Has anyone had any success recovering lost folder or files in OE?

Thanks for any suggestions,

March 29th, 2004, 1:30 pm

what outlook do you have?

March 29th, 2004, 1:58 pm

Hi,

I'm running O.E. 6 on Windows XP Home Edition.

Thanks,

March 29th, 2004, 7:45 pm

Okay your message is a little confused but anyway heres how I restore the Dbx files. Also I'd advise backing up the files you are replacing just in case. The location of the .dbx files is:
C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{E8CA3DEC-0658-438A-B434-D45B49E3598F}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

Naturally Username will be replaced with your Username on Windows, Sometimes it might have s eries of numbers behind it, just find the right one with the full set of directories in it.

Not sure if that {E8 etc.. will remain the same on your system, but if you only have one outlook identity there will only be one folder within Identities. Now just copy the recovered dbx file into the Outlook Express directory, replacing the existing one. If you want to check whether the existing one is empty, an empty folder has a size roughly 74Kb. Load up Outlook Express and select the folder and all your messages should be in there.

Important note on the use of Deleted file recovery programs.. The chances of recovering a file reduce the more you use your computer. So if there were other ones the System restore might well have overwritten them as it made use of the areas the files were stored in..

Alkatr0z

PS you might have to enable the option of seeing system files and hidden files in Tools -> Folder Options -> View

March 30th, 2004, 9:53 am

Thanks Alkatr0z.

First of all, I have another little problem. I followed the instructions in this Microsoft article about creating a new Folders.dbx file which is supposed to restore missing folders, but it didn't work and now I have 2 folders for all of my directories (Each one has a (1) behind it - in the Outlook Identities folder):

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;295965

I guess I can just delete these because they appear to be empty (59k). Should I just delete the new Folders.dbx file too and replace it with my old Folders.dbx, which I renamed before taking the steps in the Microsoft article?

I have a bunch of folders under "Local Folders". What's the best way to back all this stuff up before I start deleting and trying to replace/overwrite folders?

I know ... I have a mess here.

Thanks for your help!

March 31st, 2004, 12:19 pm

Copy them into a different location.

March 31st, 2004, 12:22 pm

Have u tried to create a new account and store what ever u have under \Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{E8CA3DEC-0658-438A-B434-D45B49E3598F}\Microsoft\Outlook Expres.

how many Accout do u have?

March 31st, 2004, 4:47 pm

Hi,

I'm not sure what you mean by creating a new account. Do you mean a new user in Windows or a new email account in Outlook Express?


Anyway, I copied all of my .dbx files to a cd, then copied and pasted the Deleted Items.dbx file that was supposedly restored, but there was still nothing in there, even though it said the file size was 1.25 MB.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

April 3rd, 2004, 7:06 pm

ok lets take it from the beginning.
what does your folder contain?

April 4th, 2004, 4:38 am

>>what does your folder contain?<<

It contained receipts and stuff from online purchases, plus some other stuff that I wanted to keep.

I'm thinking that maybe I accidentally deleted the whole folder when I meant to just delete an individual message. Then, maybe I emptied the Deleted Items folder with that other directory inside it ... maybe.

Thanks,

April 4th, 2004, 11:24 am

ur not giving me hope to help u here.

July 15th, 2006, 5:07 pm

im having the same problem my deleted items folder is missing from outlook express and i cant deleted anything. folders, messages cannot be moved to the deleted items box because its not showing.

however when u look up identities it does show as being there.

July 15th, 2006, 7:59 pm

Sounds to me like your deleted items folder is corrupt.

This page might be of help to you:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/community/columns/filecorruption.mspx
Make sure you read the whole page before acting on the instructions included in it.

December 9th, 2008, 6:29 pm

Possible your software is corrupt,if so try-extract dbx files,tool helped me many times and not for me,program extract dbx file tool can read damaged Outlook Express folders, extract messages from them and even recover previously deleted messages,can extract messages from damaged files located on another computer using your local area network,checks the integrity of a message and extracts messages together with all files attached to them,allows you to recover dbx files up to 4 Gb in size, that is it resolves the problem of 2Gb (dbx 2gb problem, dbxtract),program has a Batch extraction mode, which makes it possible to automate and speed up the process of extracting and saving messages (Outlook Express extraction, extract dbx files),software supported *.dbx file formats: MS Outlook Express 5, 5.5, 6,tool was seccussfully tested under Windows 2000/XP/2003.

December 28th, 2008, 11:34 am

Hi, wish you a happy new year!
I just found this forum and I hope someone can help because I'm out of ideas.


I am using Outlook express 6 on my Windows XP (Service pack 2). I noticed the other day that some of my email folders were missing in O.E. I could see all the folders are there at stored location and showing correct size. I have tried to import all folders again; unfortunately this did not solve the problem.

Has anyone had any success recovering lost folder or files in OE?

Thanks for any suggestions….