When an email is deleted in Outlook Express, it is directed to the ‘Deleted Items’ folder from its original folder. It can, then, be deleted from the ‘Deleted Items’ folder as well. However, in neither cases the email is removed permanently from the memory. However, even after deleting emails from the Deleted Items folder these emails stay on the hard disk thereby consuming a lot of disk space. By compacting the folders in Outlook Express, you can ensure that the disk space is efficiently utilized by removing the deleted emails. Sometimes compaction can lead to severe unforeseen damages like deletion of all emails from the folders. You should take appropriate steps to resolve the issue. However, if you are not able to resolve the issue then you should use a third-party Outlook Express repair to perform mail recovery.

Consider a scenario wherein you are using Outlook Express 6.0 in your system. One fine day, when you are exiting Outlook Express, an informational message pops-up prompting you to compact the messages. You click ‘OK’ and let the process complete. The next day, when you open Outlook Express, you find that all the emails are missing from the respective folders.

Cause:

The root cause of this scenario is that the mail and contacts database file got corrupt during the compaction process. There could be the following reasons for the mentioned situation:

· When a DBX is being compacted, Outlook Express got closed at the same time.

· The compaction process is aborted abruptly.

· You tend to leave Outlook Express idle for very long periods without closing it.

· The particular DBX file is very large. For example, the inbox.dbx file is larger than 1 GB.

Resolution:

To resolve this issue, you should perform the following steps to recover the DBX file:

· Exit Outlook Express.

· Search Recycle Bin for .dbx file(s) relating to the various folders. For example, if the Inbox emails are missing, then you should look for Inbox.dbx file.

· Restore the .dbx file.

· Start Outlook Express. The emails would be restored to their respective folders again.

However, if the problem is still not resolved then you should use a third-party DBX recovery to recover Outlook Express mail folders. Such read-only tools are able to recover Outlook Express folders without overwriting the original data.

Stellar Phoenix Outlook Express Recovery is a DBX recovery tool that enables you to repair corrupted DBX files mapped to Outlook Express. It is able to repair DBX files from any cause of corruption and save them as either a DBX or an EML file. This Outlook Express recovery software tool is capable of recovering It is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000.