Missing Email in Outlook Express and How to Get it Back

Up until recently it had been the general thought that after an archive or compression in Outlook Express that if you had lost email you were just out of luck. I recently found that when Outlook is doing this compression/archiving that it move you original folders/ dbx’s to the recycle bin and rename them  with a . tmp extension or .bak extension. This is a great discovery because then you can in theory get your email back the way it was before the data loss. I have gone in remotely to a few customers and been very successful in getting their mail back. The way you do it is a little tedious but should get you back up and running.

Ok so first, lets open the recycle bin and look to see if there is files in there that look like “inbox.bak” “outbox.bak” and so on.. if you have custom folders you should also be looking for those. (NOTE: if you do not see these files you will not be able to use this recovery method) You want to click on each one and restore them from the recycle bin. After this is done I want you to make a folder on your desktop and call it “Outlook SAFE”. Ok now we need to open up windows explorer. This can be done by right clicking on “My Computer” and going to explore. We need to get into the Outlook Express DBX directory the default location is “C:\Documents and Settings\{Affected User}\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{LONG NUMBER}\Microsoft\Outlook Express”. In this directory you should see all of your current DBX files as well as the restored files. I want you to select all of them and copy and paste them to the folder we made on the desktop. Now for the tricky part.

There is a file called “folders.dbx” now this file is what tells Outlook Express what folders are supposed to be in your tree, it is not easy to modify this file so we are going to trick this file. I want you to open up Outlook Express and make folders identical to the folders you lost. ( EXAMPLE: if you had a folder called PAYPAL and it is missing you need to make that folder again and leave it empty) At this point I also want you to make a folder called NEW MAIL and copy anything new that has come in since the compression/archive debacle. Now close Outlook Express and reopen it click on the “new” folders you made  and then close outlook express again. Now Look at the directory with your DBX’s in it, you are going to want to delete every DBX you are trying to recover from .. like INBOX / OUTBOX/ (CUSTOM FOLDERS) don’t worry we have this backed up on the desktop in the safe folder. Now I want you to rename the BAK/TMP files and change the extension to .dbx once you finish this I want you to open Outlook Express and all of your email should be there. DO NOT CHANGE THE FOLDERS.DBX FILE AT ALL THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!

If you have any problems doing this please feel free to give me a call and I can always remotely come into your machine and do it for you.