I keep a lot of mail in my inbox of Outlook Express. Just out of the blue, a huge amount from May 07 to June 09 has just disappeared. I haven’t deleted it in error, it has just disappeared. Can it be retrieved?
Outlook Express Folders and Identities
The first thing to check is that you are signed onto your computer as yourself, not another user. For example, if you are signed onto the computer using the guest account or another user’s account, Outlook Express will display the contents of that user’s Outlook Express folder - not yours.
Okay, so you’re signed into Windows as you, so that’s not the problem. Next, let’s make sure that you are using the correct “identity.” Many users use Outlook Express with different identities to keep work and personal e-mails separate. If you are accidently looking at the wrong identity, then switch back to your standard identity and see if your Inbox is as it should be.
Outlook Express Views
Before we move onto recovering emails, let’s also make sure that the View hasn’t been set to display only unread messages. Go to the View menu and look for the option that says, “Show all messages.”
Disappearing Inboxes
Once we are sure that the messages are indeed gone, let’s see if we can get to the bottom of the missing Outlook Express Inbox. An older Microsoft Knowledge Base article (321505) discusses a known conflict with McAfee corrupting Outlook Express’s Inbox. While it’s doubtful that you’re using a three-year-old version of McAfee, if you are, take a look for further instructions.
Disappearing Folders
Next, is the entire Inbox folder missing or just its contents? If the entire folder is missing, then it’s likely that the folders.dbx file is damaged. In this case, you’ll need to rename the folder and allow Outlook Express to rebuild it. This is easy. First, go to Tools> Options > Maintenance > Store Folder to find the storage location of this file. Write this down and close Outlook Express. Right-click Start, choose Explore, and navigate to this path. Find the folders.dbx file and right-click it. Choose Rename. Rename the file to folders.old. Press the Enter key and confirm that the name change took place. Restart Outlook Express and it will rebuild the file. Your folders and their contents should reappear.
Corrupt Outlook Express Inbox
Just as with the disappearing folders, renaming the inbox.dbx file often solves the problem. Use the same procedure as above, only this time rename the inbox.dbx file to inbox.old. Restart Outlook Express and see what happens. If that doesn’t work, go back and change the file name back to inbox.dbx.
E-mail Recovery Tool
The next option is to use a data recovery tool to recover the lost emails. Not any tool will do. You need one specifically capable of recovering .dbx files. ParetoLogic’s Data Recovery Pro version is one such product. What’s nice about this one is that a free data recovery scanner is available, allowing you to scan your system before you buy. That way, you can see if the emails are recoverable or not before paying for the software.
