Outlook Express

[lilycup]

I use Outlook Express and I was checking my e-mails and when I went to close it, it asked to compact the messages. I didn't hesitate and clicked ok because it's not been a problem in the past.

I've just come back to check my e-mail and have found that around 400 e-mails have gone. I would really like to get them back if possible, and I wondered if anyone knew how.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

[eefanincan]

I've never heard of this happening lily..... wish I could help. But I'll certainly think twice about clicking yes the next time I get that message.

[lilycup]

Thanks, eefanincan. It is said to happen if you click cancel while it's in the process of happening, or if you do something else on your computer while it's doing it.

I didn't click cancel, and I actually went away and did something else while it was going on, so who knows why it happened.

[Ally]

I've never had this happen to me but then I've not had 400 emails either. Whew!

Would a system restore help?

[faceless]

It's just a process to save space and time with all your emails - if you press F1 while in outlook you should be able to find some info on how to get the files back... failing that, a system restore as Ally said should do the trick (press F1 on the desktop and type system restore into the search thing that comes up to start this, remembering of course to set the date to before the time this happened!)

[lilycup]

Thanks for the help faceless and Ally, unfortunately the system restore didn't work but I didn't know about system restore before hand, so it will be a good tool now.

[Ally]

I wasn't sure if a system restore would work for emails anyway.

Maybe something like this would help.

http://www.nsware.com/Repair-Tool-for-Outlook-Express.htm

The trial version of the program can be downloaded from http://www.nsware.com/download/oerepair.zip. The evaluation time is 30 days.

[Skylace]

http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm

http://www.tutorialsall.com/IE6/Outlook-Express-381135/

I don't know if these sites will help! But it's worth a look.

[faceless]

In Outlook, try going to "file/import/messages" and look for your compressed file in your documents folder.. that might work

[lilycup]

Thank you for the help, guys. I really appreciate it I'll look through those things and see if I can get the messages back, if not then it's ok. The e-mails aren't super important, but I do like to have them for reference, and thankfully it wasn't all of the e-mails.

I saw something that is "supposed" to work, but it's $25, and as the e-mails aren't that important I'll just do without them if I can't get them back. One of my friends had this happen and downloaded a crack version of the program, but it didn't work - but that could just have been because it was a crack version.

Thank you again!!