Contents of Inbox disappeared -- need to download again from ISP server

I'm running Outlook Express. Last month I had a problem where OE suddenly deleted my Sent Mail box. Today it deleted my Inbox. All emails that were in the Inbox are now gone.

Luckily, I saved the emails in the Inbox last month. So I deleted the wiped Inbox and substituted the saved Inbox. Now I have all my received emails through last month.

The emails received since then are still on my ISP server. But for some reason, I cannot get OE to download them. It downloads new ones, but not the ones that are on the server but not in the Inbox.

I'll try a few things, but wanted to check to see if someone more familiar with OE can point me in the right direction.

Thanks.

 

How have you confirmed that the emails are still on the server? Can you access them through your ISPs mail server web page ( Often http://mail.yourisp.com or similar ,just like with google it is http://gmail.google.com)

Normally your ISP does not retain your email unless when you setup your email client program (Outlook Express for example) to "leave a copy on the server" then you specify how long (one week , until moved or deleted).
This setting is in tools/accounts/ mail/ your account/ properties/ advanced.


Having too many emails in your inbox (or any folder) can cause your problem; as can crashing the computer while the program is running.
The emails of each folder are saved as a single compressed (like a zip file) .dbx file.
When you open OE and select say the inbox, that file is expanded to form a folder. When you close OE, the new contents are compressed and saved, overwriting the previous one.

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,23383,00.asp

This free version of dbxtract may ( I stress may) be able to find the missing ones; if not
http://www.oehelp.com/
Has many other tools which can often recover lost email.

 

Oshwyn,

Thanks, as always, for your help.

My ISP server does have all the emails I need. Since they boosted the limit on messages to 2 GB about a year ago, I have been saving all my Inbox messages on the ISP server. So I see them all there.

The problem is getting the last month or so worth of emails downloaded to Outlook Express on my computer. For some reason, Outlook Express will not download those messages.

If there is no way to get them from the ISP server to my Outlook Express Inbox, I can get the messages in a more complicated way, by importing the Inbox from another computer. But I thought I would check to see if this can be done before doing that.

Thanks again.

 

Daani--Assuming that you have done a Search for all inbox.dbx files and found none with the latest emails, can you go to your email server and send yourself a copy of the recent missing ones?