David Geer Talks Tech
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Is Outlook Express slowing down, getting buggy? Courtesy of http://www.GeerCom.com.
Geer Communications - your on time technology writer!
Welcome!
If Outlook Express is slowing down or getting buggy, it may be getting too big for your computer's resources, even if you delete every item from every folder and compact your folders regularly.
There's one more thing you can do to shrink it back toward it's original size.
First, note those folders that you have mail saved in, such as the Sent Items folder, where you may want to keep stored messages. Now, delete messages from every folder where you don't plan to save any messages.
Now, under Windows XP, for Outlook Express 6, navigate to:
C:\Documents and Settings\David\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{F873E073-A50F-40A2-B71B-A6964213C7D4}\Microsoft\Outlook Express.
You can do this by opening your C drive, then the Documents and Settings folder and each consecutive folder within the folder after that as described in the path. Assuming your name isn't David, that folder name will be different for you.
In the Outlook Express folder you will find .DBX files. These files store the e-mails for each of these folders. These files will still be of some size even though you have deleted e-mails. This is one thing that can slow the performance of Outlook Express.
You can safely delete every .DBX file where you do not currently have e-mail stored that you want to keep. Outlook Express will automatically recreate them when you reopen it.
In my case, I want to keep only the Sent Items file. I highlight and delete the others. You will want to have Outlook Express closed when you do this. You may get a message stating you can't delete certain files. If so, delete the ones you are familiar with like Inbox, Outboox, etc.
Make sure to open Outlook Express and go to File, Folder and select Compact All Folders when you are done.
Best,
David Geer - your on time technology writer!
Geer Communications
Geer Communications - your on time technology writer!
Welcome!
If Outlook Express is slowing down or getting buggy, it may be getting too big for your computer's resources, even if you delete every item from every folder and compact your folders regularly.
There's one more thing you can do to shrink it back toward it's original size.
First, note those folders that you have mail saved in, such as the Sent Items folder, where you may want to keep stored messages. Now, delete messages from every folder where you don't plan to save any messages.
Now, under Windows XP, for Outlook Express 6, navigate to:
C:\Documents and Settings\David\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{F873E073-A50F-40A2-B71B-A6964213C7D4}\Microsoft\Outlook Express.
You can do this by opening your C drive, then the Documents and Settings folder and each consecutive folder within the folder after that as described in the path. Assuming your name isn't David, that folder name will be different for you.
In the Outlook Express folder you will find .DBX files. These files store the e-mails for each of these folders. These files will still be of some size even though you have deleted e-mails. This is one thing that can slow the performance of Outlook Express.
You can safely delete every .DBX file where you do not currently have e-mail stored that you want to keep. Outlook Express will automatically recreate them when you reopen it.
In my case, I want to keep only the Sent Items file. I highlight and delete the others. You will want to have Outlook Express closed when you do this. You may get a message stating you can't delete certain files. If so, delete the ones you are familiar with like Inbox, Outboox, etc.
Make sure to open Outlook Express and go to File, Folder and select Compact All Folders when you are done.
Best,
David Geer - your on time technology writer!
Geer Communications
