Can't Delete emails. (When Inbox Repair Tool doesn't work.)

>> "Do you ever or can you empty your deleted items folder, and then try again?"

That is the problem.  As of today or last night some time, Outlook would not allow me to delete any emails, or empty my deleted items folder.

My setup is: Internet Mail Only  

I don't need to keep any of my deleted item contents, and was actually trying to delete it when it started to give me this problem.  It WAS allowing me to, then I highlighted all in my deleted items folder, (it was a lot), and hit delete.  It spun up, then started coughing up this error.  

>> "Instead of using the delete command, try right clicking on the deleted items folder and choosing "empty deleted items folder"

No go. Tried it, and got the following "The messaging interface has returned an unknown error.  If the problem persists, restart Outlook."


I'll try your second suggestion. I'll post the result in a few.

Nope. I tried to drag a single email in Folder List View from my old deleted items folder to the new empty deleted items folder and got the following error:

"Can't move the items.  The item could not be deleted.  It was either moved or already deleted, or access was denied."

When Outlook initially choked, I had my entire (1600+ items) deleted folder selected and had hit the delete key.  It seemed to be in the middle of that batch delete when it choked and started kicking the error.  Do you think it "THINKS" that these files are already deleted even though it didnt delete them? Then again, that would not explain why it stopped allowing me to delete new and old emails in my Inbox.  

Hold down SHIFT then press delete. This will delete them for good and they will not hit the deleted items folder.

Also, how big is your pst file - I have seen files hit 1.6gb and become corrupt even though the MS limit is alleg

Not sure whether this will help you or not.

Jason

...I will continue.......even though the MS limit is allegedly 2gb for pst files for Outlook 2000.

Ok, this is getting weirder.  Rodlab's suggestion to hold SHIFT + press DELETE worked in my inbox, and in my sent folder, but NOT in my deleted folder.  Still however, if I don't hold shift and try to delete a file in any of those folders, it still will not delete.

My pst is 380Mb.  Once, several years ago I had to go through a full truncate since I had let it get to almost 2Gigs.. but thankfully thats not the problem this time around.

So - I'm still open to ideas on this.

Worth a try. I'm giving that a go right now.

Ok, so far so good. Exported everything to a NEW .pst, and opened that through outlook.  Was able to delete the entire deleted items folder and deleting is not a problem in new account.

I'm not clear on how to have new email delivered into this account versus the old/existing one.  When I highlight (in folder view) the new pst account, and go to properties, there is a checkbox to 'Deliver POP mail to this personal folders file'.  Is that all I have to do to have all of my pop accounts start dropping new emails into the new pst, so that I can hopefully delete my old/corrupted personal folders file?  

So when the file just goes corrupt and inbox repair tool doesn't work, first try what we did and export a completely new .pst file, then open that in Outlook and tell it to have all new POP mail delivered there.

Note to anyone reading this after this is closed, your outlook shortcuts will possibly be broken since you end up closing the old pst.  You can quickly right-click in the shortcuts area and create any new shortcuts to get it "back the way you are used to".  

Thanks to both of you guys. Since Traval did suggest starting a clean pst, but Rodlab helped me through it in more detail, I'll split the points. Thanks again.

What you could do is rename the old file (or just delete it) and then name the new pst file as per the old name. Then you dont have to worry about properties as long as they live in the same dir.

Thanks for the points.

Jason

THanks for the help.