The first thing you’ll want to check is your Outbox folder. Go in there, click on the View menu and choose Current View. Once you’re there, make sure the Show All Messages choice is selected. That ensures that you’re able to see all of the messages contained in your Outbox folder. If you then see an e-mail message appear, you can send it off normally or even delete it if you want.
The next thing you can check is within the Outbox folder itself. Go to File, Folder, Compact. If nothing happens, your folder is probably ok and you don’t need to worry about it any longer. If you happen to get an error message, the Outbox.dbx file may be damaged. There are a couple of possible causes for that.
One could actually be an anti virus program that scans outgoing e-mail. Unknown to some, the e-mail scan isn’t really necessary to protect your computer, especially if you have a regular anti virus program running as well. Go ahead and disable any e-mail scans to prevent any other e-mail files from being damaged in the future.
If you do have a damaged Outbox file, the next thing you’ll want to do is repair it (obviously!) To do that, you need to know where your store folder is for your e-mails. If you’re not sure where yours is, go to Tools, Options and click on the Maintenance tab. Toward the bottom, you’ll see the Store Folder button. Click on that and a box will pop up telling you where your store folder is located on your computer. It will also give you a drive letter. Write that down if you think you’ll forget. You can change the location at this point if you want to do that as well.
Once you have the information you need, close Outlook Express and open up your store folder. Find the file titled “Outbox.dbx” and delete it. When you open Outlook Express again, a new Outbox folder will automatically be created, so you can continue to use it just like normal. Most times, the problem lies within an unsent message, but it’s good to know what you can do if that isn’t the case!
