Missing emails in Inbox Outlook Express

Those articles don't apply in my case.  I have the emails in the dbx file, but Outlook Express isn't loading them in.

Here is another possibility you can try out.

CLOSE Outlook Express.
Open your Store Folder in Windows Explorer.
COPY OUT the 300MB *.dbx file from your Store Folder into a NEW non-system folder somewhere.  I suggest creating a new folder on your Desktop for reasons that will become apparent later.

Download the "Universal Extractor" Installer package from here:
http://legroom.net/software/uniextract
http://legroom.net/scripts/download.php?file=uniextract16

This will create 3 new menu options when you Right-Click on certain file types as shown in the screenshot here:
http://legroom.net/files/software/uniextract_context.png

Right-Click on the COPY of your Inbox.dbx and choose "UniExtract to Subdir".

This will open a "DOS" window and you will see it extracting the individual components from the messages contained in the *.dbx archive.  It will take about 5 minutes with a *.dbx file of that size, providing it is not corrupt.

On completion, it will have created a new sub-folder named "Inbox", and that folder will contain a separate folder named after an abbreviated portion of the original Subject line of each email.  In each of those folders there will be an *.eml file (similarly named) plus any attachments such as images and *.dat files.

DON'T PANIC :-)  here is a very easy way to get all the *.eml files into one folder, and although the actual names of the *.eml files may look weird, this will not matter as I will explain.
Go back up to the folder containing your copy of Inbox.dbx that you right-clicked on.

Right-Click in there, choose NEW > "Text Document".
Rename your new *.txt file something like "Emails_To_One_Folder.cmd".  Note the .CMD file extension rather than the .TXT extension.  This will issue a warning about changing file types which you should just say OK to.

Right-Click your *.CMD file and choose "Edit" to open it in Notepad.
Having copied the code down in the Code Snippet below, paste this into Notepad, and do a File > Save.

When you now double-click on "Emails_To_One_Folder.cmd", this will create a sub-folder named "All_Messages" and will move all the *.eml files into that folder from all the weirdly named sub-folders of "Inbox".

Confirm that you have all the *.eml files in that "All_Messages" folder, and you can then delete the "Inbox" folder and all its contents.  The *.eml files are all self-contained and will have all the original attachments in them.

Keep your Desktop folder opened on the "All_Messages" folder so that you can see the emails and select them all using Shift-Click, or Edit > Select All.

Now open Outlook Express again.  Make the Window as small as you need to so that you can still see the selected *.eml messages in the open Windows Explorer folder behind it.

Create a new Folder in Outlook Express named something like IMPORTED.  Click on that Outlook Express folder so that it shows the area to be populated with messages.

Go across to the selected *.eml files in the folder behind Outlook Express, then drag and drop the files right into the message list area in Outlook Express.  You sometimes have to mess around a bit to get this done without windows minimizing each time, but it's possible.

You should now see that your IMPORTED folder is populated by messages now displaying the full subject line, unlike the abbreviated names of the *.eml files you dropped into it.

Without delay, try to separate messages into other folders to organise them by year, month, from recipient, or some other method, to reduce the folder size.  You want to eventually empty the IMPORTED folder and also to try and keep your Inbox for a small number of new messages until you later sort them into other storage folders.

These instructions seem very complex and long-winded, don't they?  :-)

In fact, the instructions have probably taken longer to type than it will take you to set up everything, execute the extraction, gather the *.eml files into one folder, and then drag and drop them into Outlook Express.

I find that doing it my way is much faster than using programs like DBXtract, but the choice is yours.

Here's the "Emails_To_One_Folder.cmd" batch file you need to copy and paste.

@echo off
 
md "%CD%\All_Messages"
 
for /r "%CD%" %%a in (*.eml) do move "%%a" "%CD%\Messages"
 
exit 

                                              

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Hello jcimarron:

Your 4th link did the trick.  All my emails are back in tact again, thanks to your help!!!

If anyone chooses the free 4th link, they must put the subsequent eml files back into Outlook.  Here is how it is done:  http://bitdaddys.com/Import-EML-To-Outlook.html