Last week, subscriber Ed Pilarczyk wrote to ask:
Long time subscriber…Great tips. Thanks! Problem:
Just recently, when I exit Outlook Express, it started asking me if I want to compact the messages. I can not find anything about shutting this usless reminder off — been to tools, options, and everywhere else. Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Ed Pilarczyk
There’s a basic problem with Ed’s question.
He’s decided that Outlook Express’ message, asking if he wanted to compact the message folders, is a useless reminder.
It’s not.
The reason you can not turn off the reminder is that it is triggered by the size of your Outlook Express data file.
Let Outlook Express compact the message folders. If you don’t, after a while it will do compact it anyway. Meanwhile, you are in danger of OE’s file getting too large and OE simply being unable to delete files.
Like all email programs, when you delete a message (including Junk/spam messages), the email does not really get deleted from the email program’s data file. It just gets marked as "deleted" and will be purged the next time you compact the message folder.
Until you actually take the step to compact the messages in Outlook Express’ message file, it just gets bigger and bigger as you receive more emails.
You can also choose to do it manually at any time. Just go to Tools > Folder > Compact All Folders.
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