Maybe Lance will now address the importance of "compacting folders" after deletions? Cora > > > Actually, if you just highlight the first message, then scroll to the bottom > of the list, then hold down the SHIFT key as you click on the last message, > they will all then be highlighted ready for deletion. To avoid sending all > those to the DELETED ITEMS folder, keep holding the SHIFT key down as you > press the DELETE key. > > To be selective about messages you wish to delete, hold down the CTRL key as > you scroll through the messages using the DOWN ARROW and only press DELETE > on the individual messages you wish to delete. When you are finished, hold > down the SHIFT key and press DELETE. Only the selected messages will be > deleted. > > Lance

Compacting is a simple procedure in Outlook Express. Just select the folder in the side menu you need to compact e.g. INBOX , then click FILE|FOLDERS|COMPACT. Depending on the amount in the folder it usually is a quick operation. This operation doesn't delete messages. It just removes the "waste" space in the folder. While we have talked about "mass deletion" of items in the SENT folder, users need to be mindful that some of those messages may be of importance, critical importance perhaps, so be judicial in what you are selecting to delete. Don't just blindly highlight and delete. You may be looking for one of those messages some time in the future :-(. One way around storing messages is to use a web mail account. Most of the major ones have lifted their storage capacity for messages - Hotmail now 250 MB, Yahoo Mail 250 MB but soon to be 1 GB, and GMail was 1 GB, now 2 GB+. This is more than ample space than the average user would need (2 GB will hold around 140,000 plain text messages or more). Even if you don't wish to use those services as your main mail account, you can set up one as an accessible archive for messages received on your other account/s. Just select messages you wish to archive, right click and select FORWARD. Those messages will the be added as attachments to a message you can send to your GMail account (just watch the size). Add a subject to indicate what the group of messages is about. When the message is opened in GMail, you will see all the attached messages displayed without the need to "open" attachments. Using this method, I reduced the size of my Outlook "pst" file to a third of what it was previously. Archived messages in GMail are able to be searched rapidly for any message you wish to review (similar to a Google search). The other advantage of this is that the messages can be accessed by you from any computer anywhere. Lance P. S. Check out Legacy Family Tree today! This full featured genealogy program can be downloaded FREE at http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Index.asp?mid=52583ii -----Original Message----- From: Cotahe@wmconnect.com [mailto:Cotahe@wmconnect.com] Sent: Friday, 15 April 2005 10:49 PM To: SENIOR-NEWBIE-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [SR-NEWBIE] RE: MASS DELETION OF EMAILS Maybe Lance will now address the importance of "compacting folders" after deletions? Cora