QuickFix: Outlook Express Does Not Allow You To Delete Messages

You highlight a message and click the delete button (the big red "X") and nothing happens. This is an indication that the Deleted Items folder of Outlook Express is corrupt.

To fix this problem, follow these instructions.

Save Deleted Messages

You may want to attempt to save any messages in the Deleted Items folder that are important. Because the Deleted Items folder is corrupt, you may or may not be able to do this.

If you are not able to do this, we may want to keep a copy of the database file ("Deleted Items.dbx") that we're going to delete later so we can use an Outlook recovery program to attempt to get our messages back.

Find Out Where Your "Data Store" Is

Outlook Express stores all your emails in database files on your hard drive. To complete this procedure, we need to know where on your hard drive these files are located.

To do this:

(1) Click Tools->Options->Maintenance (tab)->Store Folder (button)

This will show us where on our computer the Outlook Express database files are stored.

By default it may look something like this:

C:\Documents and Settings\Users\Applications\Outlook Express\Data\Data Store

Make note of this location.

Delete the Deleted Items Database File

Using Windows Explorer, navigate to your Outlook Express Data Store folder and then delete the file named "Deleted Items.dbx".

The easiest way to open Windows Explorer is to RIGHT-Click on your Windows Start button and then click "Explore". This opens Windows Explorer.

Now you can navigate to the folder you made note of earlier, and find the file called "Deleted Items.dbx". Right-click on this file and then click "Delete" from the menu that appears.

If you still have emails in this the Deleted Items folder of Outlook Express that you would like to try and recover, you can simply move this file ("Deleted Items.dbx") to a different folder on your hard drive. Then, you can later attempt to find a special program that is used to recover emails from Outlook Express database files.

Now, close Windows Explorer and restart Outlook Express. You should now be able to delete emails normally.