Happens all the time John. MS OE 5+ has a glitch in it that can and will cause the loss of msg.,s and/or entire folders. If you have OE set to compact in the back ground ,,,, turn it off. Go to Tools / Options / Maintenance and uncheck the option to compact folders in the background. There appears to be a problem wherein when OE tries to access a folder (e.g. to put a newly downloaded message in it) while it is being compacted some messages or the whole folder may be lost. Once you have turned off background compacting, do it regularly (once a week?) by first putting OE in off-line mode (VERY important) and then using File / Folder / Compact All. You may can recover your lost folders by forcing OE to build a new Folders.dbx file. Right click on your Inbox then click on Properties ,,,, click on the path to where your Folders & msg.s are stored and scroll to the right to see the entire path ,,,, record this path. Now, shut down OE ,,,, right click on "Start" then click on "Explore" ,,, navigate to your mail folder in the Path above and find the file Folders.dbx ,,, rename it to Folders.dbx.bob Restart OE ,,, OE will now,search the entire mail folder and build a new Folders.dbx ,,, and hopefully restore the lost folders & msg.'s. ,,,,, NOTE: this will destroy any structuring you may have had ,,, there will be no more sub folders, only a long list of folders + their msg.'s. Sub folders can be restored by Dragging & Dropping. If you do not find the lost folders ,, Shut down OE ,,, go back to the mail folder ,,, delete the new Folders.dbx and rename Folders.dbx.bob back to Folders.dbx ,,,, restart OE and you are right back where you started from, including all sub folders. Good luck & lets hope this does it ,,,, I will be out of town for the next 9 days. Bob Hays _____________________________________ ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Stevens" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 6:02 AM Subject: [OE] folders disappeared > I have a member of staff who tells me that some of his folders with about 500 messages > have disappeared. They were there this morning but when he went into it just now they were not > there. > He had about 5 important folders set with rules under the root of his deleted items folder. > He has scanned for a virus but nothing. > There is no identities set-up and he has not deleted them. > Has anyone come across this before. > > Regards > > John Stevens > MAM Software Ltd > > > ==== OUTLOOK-EXPRESS Mailing List ==== > To remove your email address from this list, visit this url: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~cheps/maillist.htm >