# Whoops. Accidentally deleted 900+ emails in Outlook Express **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 28, 2006, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317 "2006-03-28T23:18:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnac_the_Magnificent)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317/1 "2006-03-28T23:18:42Z")
Jeepers, I hate it when these things happen. Also hate it when I download a recovery program and it suddenly reboots the PC after loading. Did I say hate? Nothing backed up on a server, of course. Much too easy. Any way for me to recover these emails, or am I SOL? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317/2 "2006-03-28T23:26:37Z")
They aren’t just sitting in the OE recycle bin are they? You can search your whole system for \*.mbx files. There could be a backup somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317/3 "2006-03-28T23:30:03Z")
You can look at it this way. . . A couple of times in my computer lifetime I have lost all of my e-mails. Never once did it really cause me any problem. Life went on. What you find out is that they really weren’t that important in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317/4 "2006-03-29T00:41:02Z")
Been there, done that. On my regularly-used machine, I have my settings set to keep a copy on the server. Well, one day, I was using a machine in the shared computer lab, and set up a new e-mail profile on it. Except I forgot to check the box for “keep a copy on the server”. So 3000 of my old e-mails now live on that computer, and nowhere else. If I ever really needed any of those old messages, I could get it from that computer, but I’ve found that I actually haven’t. Most of them were garbage I just never got around to deleting, anyway. So don’t worry. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317/5 "2006-03-29T00:44:27Z")
In the future, you can get in the habit of backing up your Outlook folder onto CD. Then if you ever need to recover those old messages, you can do an import from the old file on CD. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317/6 "2006-03-29T00:46:05Z")
One other thing you could do - If you are simply looking for a specific piece of data in an E-mail that you lost, it may still be on your hard drive, assuming the OS hasn’t overwritten that now-free sector yet. Use a disk scanning utility and search for some text that you know to be in the E-mail you’re looking for, and you may be able to read the E-mail. I don’t think they are stored in any special encoded format or anything. ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317/7 "2006-03-29T01:24:46Z")
Just restore from your backups. CD/DVD writers and media are dirt cheap. ---
**Author:** ![Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnac_the_Magnificent)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317/8 "2006-03-29T01:28:03Z")
> [@Spartydog](#): > > You can look at it this way. . . > > A couple of times in my computer lifetime I have lost all of my e-mails. Never once did it really cause me any problem. Life went on. What you find out is that they really weren’t that important in the first place. A couple hundred were from family members, some deceased. I backup often, but didn’t know how to backup email. Time to learn. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317/9 "2006-03-29T01:29:35Z")
> [@mks57](#): > > Just restore from your backups. Wha…what do you _mean_ you don’t have any backups? :rolleyes: \ ---
**Author:** ![Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnac_the_Magnificent)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317/10 "2006-03-29T01:42:55Z")
> [@Beware of Doug](#): > > Wha…what do you _mean_ you don’t have any backups? :rolleyes: \ Here’s what I have. Actually, I mirrored my entire PC a couple days ago–the first time I’ve ever done that–but don’t understand the technical aspects of this trial Acronis system to find my deleted Outlook Express emails. More fundamentally, I’m not sure where OE emails are typically stored. I’m guessing: My Computer \> C drive \> Program Files \> Outlook Express??? (not sure) Should I be looking for DB files or Shaggy’s \*,mbx files, or what? I found the OE folder, but upon opening the files, it’s all jibberish. Used WordPad, NotePad and Word to open, no dice. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317/11 "2006-03-29T01:57:44Z")
> [@Carnac the Magnificent!](#): > > Here’s what I have. > > Actually, I mirrored my entire PC a couple days ago–the first time I’ve ever done that–but don’t understand the technical aspects of this trial Acronis system to find my deleted Outlook Express emails. > > More fundamentally, I’m not sure where OE emails are typically stored. I’m guessing: > > My Computer \> C drive \> Program Files \> Outlook Express??? (not sure) > > Should I be looking for DB files or Shaggy’s \*,mbx files, or what? I found the OE folder, but upon opening the files, it’s all jibberish. Used WordPad, NotePad and Word to open, no dice. If you are serious about mirroring the whole system, you can restore the files (and you thought all was lost). I have done this many times and it isn’t too hard but it can get really tricky under ceratin conditions. I don’t know what version of OE you have. The file extension could be either .dbx or .mbx depending on the version of OE you use. All you really need to do is search for the .mdx file. It will be in the Documents and Settings folder under your user profile. Just use Windows search. You may need to enable hidden files. You just have to replace your existing .mdx file with the backed up one. Just drop it in and restart OE. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317/12 "2006-03-29T01:59:13Z")
You can’t just open those files. They are encrypted. You just need to replace your current file of either of those two types with the old one. It should work. I have fixed many an OE problem. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoops-accidentally-deleted-900-emails-in-outlook-express/350317/13 "2006-03-29T01:59:40Z")
> [@Spartydog](#): > > You can look at it this way. . . > > A couple of times in my computer lifetime I have lost all of my e-mails. Never once did it really cause me any problem. Life went on. What you find out is that they really weren’t that important in the first place. Oh yes. I mean, deceased family members is one thing, but I think Sparty (and me) both thought it was for work. Once my coworkers were looking for a phone number that was supposedly in the planner of someone who had left. :dubious: They tore the office apart. They made me search. They stressed over it. Fretted over it. The office was tense and miserable. They never found it. It didn’t make the slightest bit of difference, we accomplished the task anyway.