Turning off automatic compacting in Outlook Express

Daanii · 26th October 2005

How do I turn off automatic compacting in Outlook Express? I saw from other threads to go into Tools/Options/Maintenance, but I do not find an automatic compacting option there.

My computer is running Windows XP Home. Twice now I have seen an automatic compacting message come up, and then later found my folders to be largely empty. (As can be seen from a now closed thread I created.)

My Inbox has problems? I can deal with that. When it completely wipes out my Sent Messages folder, though, that is a real problem.

Thanks.

**Miz** · 26th October 2005

"You can't turn it off, but you can reset the counter to 0, (zero).

Go to: Start>Run>Regedit>OK and find this key.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{GUID for Identity}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook
Express\5.0. In the right hand pane and find *Compact Check Count* and set
the value to 0, (zero). This will reset the prompt, and you won't see it
again for another 100 closings.

However, if you do not compact your folders from time to time, you stand a
good chance of your .dbx files becoming corrupt and very possibly lose your
messages.

Or: Steve Cochran has added a button in his new version of OE Tool that will
not only Compact All Folders, but at the same time, resets the "Compact
Check Count" to zero whenever you compact manually. You will see the prompt
again if you do not compact before 100 closings.

http://www.oehelp.com/OETool/

It is still advised to check Work Offline before you compact.

Please see this about compacting your folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact
and:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/...filecorruption.... " (Source)

Daanii · 31st October 2005

Thanks for the information about turning off automatic compacting. Although the source says that automatic compacting was turned off, I did not get a prompt to compact. It just went ahead and did it. And in the process, wiped out my Sent Messages folder and most of my Inbox folder.

I guess I will just keep my Inbox and Sent Messages folders as small as possible, and see if that helps.

Thanks for the reference, Miz.

**Miz** · 31st October 2005

Here's how I do it:

First, I move OE's Store Folder to a folder in My Documents. Doing that requires first making a folder (I named it "OE Mail") in My Documents.

Then I copy the contents of the old store folder into the new. I copy instead of move so if something goes wrong during the copy process, I still have the originals to try again. I delete the originals once I make sure the copies are working right.

Then I move OE's address book into the same OE Mail folder. That requires a registry edit:
1. Go to Start>Run, type in "regedit" (without the quotes) and navigate to this key:
\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WAB\WAB4\Wab File Name
2. Click Registry| Export Registry File and save the selected branch to your desktop as "WAB.reg". You can then restore the current location simply by double-clicking the saved WAB.reg file.
3. In the right-hand pane, right-click on (Default) and click Modify, then carefully enter the full path and file name of your relocated *.wab.
4. Exit the Registry Editor

Then I change the path to the Store Folder in OE>Tools>Maintenance tab>Store Folder button to the newly created OE Mail. That's also where you find the path to the old store folder so you can transfer its contents.

Once I've got all that done, I back up the My Documents folder onto CD about once a week. I've never had a problem importing any of the backed up folders into OE if I need to get at an old message or two.

This method allows me to clean up all OE's folders right after I've run the backup. I use Karen's Replicator to run the backup automatically. It's free.