A couple of weeks ago I was faced with a challenge of recovering emails from a severly infected PC using Microsoft Outlook Express (OE) 6.0. While spending countless hours looking up ways on how to fix this problem, as well as trying out various software, I realize that I needed to write this down as it probably can save a lot of stress and time for others with similar problems.

The Problem:

• An infected PC with MS OE 6.0 that randomly crashed one day and deleted the entire Inbox
• MS OE emails are compressed into dbx files that make retrieving emails impossible without a third party software
• Replacing corrupted Inbox.dbx file back into the storage folder was unsuccessful in bringing back emails

How OE emails are stored and how to access them:

Each folder found on the side menu in MS OE (e.g, Inbox, Trash, Sent) is stored in a separate file with extension dbx. The dbx file stores the messages entirely and some other information.

Each Identity (item File > Identities in the main menu of OE) creates its own folder for storing dbx files. To locate this folder select from the OE main menu Tools > Options. On the maintenance tab, click on the Maintenance tab and press the Store Folder button. Copy the file path (CTRL-C). Press the windows key on the keyboard or press Start and then click Run. Paste the file path and press enter.

The Solution

After trying out different demos on email recovery, I decided to go ahead and purchase DBXtract from http://www.oehelp.com/dbxtract/default.aspx for $11 USD. It’s a relatively simple application where all you need to do is follow the simple instructions they provided after downloading the file. It was able to retrieve many, if not all, of the lost emails. After retrieval, all emails could be simply placed back into OE by dragging it into a folder on the sidebar (e.g, Inbox or Inbox-Old). The only downside to this software is that it takes a very long time to extract. Depending on how many emails you need to extract it could take a few days.