[orionrbm]

VistaRookie, many thanks for your patience and help. I found the missing emails. Do I need to OE and Windows Explorer?

[orionrbm]

Do I need to restore OE & WE?

[VistaRookie]

Open Windows Explorer and OE where you can see both. Highlight the .eml files.
Then drag them into any folder in OE.

Then if you wish, you can delete DBXtract, there is no uninstall process, just
delete. And that copy of your Inbox.dbx can also be deleted. And you can
delete any remaining .eml files in that same folder as well.

You are very welcome. Glad you found them!

[orionrbm]

My email files are in a file with .dbx extension. All the emails I was saving are not in my email folders. Also should I change the Store Message Folders address?

[VistaRookie]

My email files are in a file with .dbx extension.

I have no idea what this means. In reality, all OE emails are in dbx files
unless you save them to your hard drive as eml files or some other format.
Normal usage of OE uses dbx files for storage to operate.

Normally, no, don't change your location of the message store.

If you want to do certain things with your emails and OE above and beyond
regular usage, you will have to search Google for help. This thread has
turned into a book, I really can't devote more time to it.

[orionrbm]

How can I open these .dbx files. How can save them to my hard drive as .eml files?

[throoper]

Hi orionrbm,

I'll give a try at getting you sorted out, but I'm a little confused at exactly what the situation is.
Could you please explain in detail where your DBX files currently are (don't try to open them as it can damage them) and also, are all your messages missing from OE?

T.

[orionrbm]

When was looking for missing email I went into OE and in Tools>Maintenance I changed the store folder url. I had saved from older emails in my Bulk & Draft files. They are in DBX format which I didn't want to happen. I want to put them back in OE in the proper files and be able to view them.

[throoper]

Originally Posted by orionrbm

When was looking for missing email I went into OE and in Tools>Maintenance I changed the store folder url.

Do you mean you clicked the "Change" button and entered a new address for the Message Store to be located at?
Do you know where it's now located and can you access it and see all the DBX files it contains?

I had saved from older emails in my Bulk & Draft files. They are in DBX format which I didn't want to happen. I want to put them back in OE in the proper files and be able to view them.

Are the "Bulk and Drafts.dbx" currently in the Message Store folder or were they saved to a different location?

Did you look in your Recycle bin for BAK files? For example, Inbox.bak, Sent Items.bak, Drafts.bak, etc.

Please answer the above questions as completely and accurately as possible. The information is needed in order to tell you what to do to try to recover your missing messages.

As long as VistaRookie thinks this thread is becoming a book, I'm going to add a chapter.
This is a condensed version of how OE works and hopefully will give you an understanding of what you're doing.

First thing you need to know is that OE is an Interface (it translates computer language and data into a form that can be understood by a human).
All your messages are stored in the Message Store folder in the form of DBX files (these are data files that are unreadable by a human).
Each folder of messages you see in OE is really a DBX(data) file that is located in the Message Store folder.
When you open a folder in OE, the program looks for the appropriate DBX file in the Message Store and displays the data it contains as your messages.
Each folder in OE will have a corresponding DBX file of the same name. for example if you have a folder named Old Mail, there will be an Old Mail.dbx in the Message Store folder. A DBX will exist for each folder you see in OE.
If the Old Mail.dbx gets removed from the Message Store folder (or just becomes corrupted), OE will not be able to display the messages it contains. It won't be able to find and read the data it contains.
When that happens, OE will create a new, empty DBX file to write data to.
That's why it's important to know where the original DBX files are, as they contain the data (messages) you need.

T.

[orionrbm]

I know where the original .dbx file are. The message store folder url was changed when I was searching for the 2 missing emails which I found. There was no .bak files in my recyle folder.

[throoper]

Originally Posted by orionrbm

I know where the original .dbx file are. The message store folder url was changed when I was searching for the 2 missing emails which I found. There was no .bak files in my recyle folder.

I'll assume then that you moved the Message Store and know where it is and can access it.
I'll also assume the Bulk and Drafts are the DBX files with messages you wish to restore to OE.

OK. Let's give this a try.
We need to be sure the Bulk and Drafts DBX files are not corrupted.
Go to this site http://www.snapfiles.com/get/dbxviewer.html and download the viewer.
Unzip the viewer to the desktop. Double click it to run it.
You'll get a gray screen with a menu bar at the top.
On the menu bar, click File>Open.
On the Open Wizard box, select "Outlook Express message database" and click the folder icon at the end of that line.
Do not click the "Browse current OE store" button (unless the Bulk and Draft DBX files are still in the Store folder).
Browse to and select the Bulk.dbx file.
It should open in the viewer and list all messages the file contains.

Repeat the above with the Drafts.dbx.

If one or both opens and contains messages, let me know and I'll post detailed instructions for putting them back into OE.

T.

[orionrbm]

The Drafts and the Bulk folders are empty. Is there any way I can get them back?

[throoper]

Right. When you open OE, the Drafts and Bulk folders do not contain messages. The DBX files for those folders have either been moved or become corrupted.

I think you are confusing the folder you see in OE with the DBX file in the Message Store folder.
Reread my previous post above, number 39, concerning how OE works.
Where are the Bulk.dbx and Draft.dbx files?
Are they still in the Message Store folder or did you move them to another location?
Note: If you moved them out of the Message Store folder, OE will have created new files for those folders that do not contain any data. You need the original, data containing DBX files.

[orionrbm]

As I told you: I changed the url in The Message Folder. After I had found the missing emails I went to my folders that contained old emails I was saving. At that point they were in the new folder that I had changed in The Message Folder. I tried to get these .dbx fles back into OE but couldn't. Evidently I must have done something to these folders and thus they are empty.

[throoper]

Sorry to keep asking questions, but your terminology (what you call things) isn't the norm and I'm trying to understand the situation so I don't tell you to do something that will cause more confusion.

If I'm understanding correctly, in OE you have folders named Bulk and Drafts.
You also have DBX files named Bulk.dbx and Drafts.dbx in the Message Store folder.

What I'm trying to find out is if the DBX files are the original DBX files (that were in the Message Store folder when you had messages showing in the Bulk and Drafts folders in OE), or are they new DBX files that have been created because you renamed the Message Store folder.
If they are the originals, it's reasonably simple to get the messages to display again in OE.

One way to tell is by the size of the DBX file. Would you please look and post the size of each.

T.