Outlook Express Recovery Kit – Online help

It is strongly recommended to stick to the sequence of actions for recovering mail messages and closely follow the instructions during the process of recovering lost messages from corrupted Outlook Express dbx files with Outlook Express Recovery Kit (Download).

1. Specifying the path to the corrupted .dbx file
2. Selecting the dbx file
3. Extracting messages from the .dbx file
4. Saving the correspondence extracted from the corrupted .dbx file as separate .eml files
5. Copying the recovered correspondence to a new .dbx file

See also:

1. Searching for *.dbx files in Outlook Express Recovery Kit
2. Recovering mail messages in the batch mode
3. Recovering mail messages with the Recovery Wizard

1. Specifying the path to the corrupted Outlook Express dbx file

The path to the corrupted *.dbx file must be specified in the Source Folder Path field . There are three ways to specify the path in Outlook Express Recovery Kit:

• manually enter the path to the *.dbx file in the Source Folder Path field;
• select the path from the drop-down list;
• use the Choose Source Folder button on the toolbar of the program or select the Choose Source Folder item in the Actions submenu of Outlook Express Recovery Kit.

The path the program automatically specifies in the Source Folder Path field is the path to the *.dbx files where Outlook Express stores the current user's correspondence. It will be the first path in the drop-down list with paths to .dbx files. Other paths are paths where the program detected *.dbx files before. If for some reason you do not know the path where the *.dbx file you need is located, use the internal dbx file search feature of Outlook Express Recovery Kit that you can enable using the Search .dbx file button .

The path to the found file will be specified in the Source Folder Path field automatically if you use the internal search feature of Outlook Express Recovery Kit.

If you select the path to *.dbx files from the drop-down list, it will be also specified in the Source Folder Path field automatically.

If you enter the path manually, you should click the Go button to the right from the Source Folder Path field or press the Enter key on the keyboard after you finish entering the path in order to display the list of files stored in the folder.

2. Selecting the Outlook Express .dbx file

After you enter the path in the Source Folder Path field, the list of *.dbx files stored in the selected folder will be displayed in the left part of the Outlook Express Recovery Kit window. Also, the program will display files with dbt extention (temporary Outlook Express files that can also contain messages). The list may be empty, it means that there are no files with the dbx extension in the selected folder. You should change the path in the Source Folder Path field in this case.

There are several ways to start recovering the necessary *.dbx file in Outlook Express Recovery Kit. The procedure of reading the selected file can be started by:

• pressing the Enter key on the keyboard (the cursor must be on the selected file);
• double-clicking the selected file;
• clicking the Read Source File button on the program toolbar;
• selecting the Read Source File item in the Actions submenu of the main menu.

3. Extracting messages from the .dbx file

Start the process of reading the .dbx file in one of the four ways described above. Outlook Express Recovery Kit will start scanning, analyzing and verifying the integrity of mail messages from the corrupted .dbx file. The time the program will spend on processing the data may vary depending on the computer performance, the size and number of the files being processed. The lower performance rate and the large amount of recovered information increase the time the program needs to process the information. If the option of undeleting deleted messages is enabled, the time of scanning considerably increases.

All extracted messages will be added to the Recovered e-mail list in the program window. The user can view the following fields: Sender, Recipient, Received date, Subject, if there are attachments in the message. It is also possible to view message bodies in the registered version of the program.

The icon in the Recovered e-mail list indicates messages deleted in Outlook Express. Outlook Express Recovery Kit allows you to undelete such messages. Since part of information in these messages is deleted permanently, it is not always that such messages can be recovered correctly. Select the Recovery Deleted E-mails checkbox in the Options submenu of the Tools menu in the Outlook Express Recovery Kit tool to undelete deleted messages (deleted messages are not recovered by default).

4. Saving the correspondence extracted from the corrupted Outlook Express dbx file as separate *.eml files

The path to the folder where Outlook Express Recovery Kit should save recovered messages must be specified in the E-mail(s) Save Folder field . There are 3 ways to save recovered information in the program:

• manually enter the path to the folder in the E-mail(s) Save Folder field;
• select the path to the folder from the drop-down list;
• use the Choose Save Folder button in a toolbar of the program or select the Choose Save Folder item in the Actions submenu of Outlook Express Recovery Kit.

The last path used to save messages will be offered. The same path will be the first one in the drop-down list of the E-mail(s) Save Folder field.

If necessary, select the checkboxes in the left column of the Recovered e-mail list next to the messages you want to save.

Click the Save e-mail(s) button after that. The popup menu will offer you three ways to save the data :

• Save checked e-mails - save the selected messages;
• Save current e-mail - save the current message;
• Save all e-mails - save all messages.

Select and click the option that best suits your situation. All messages will be saved as separate *.eml files (RFC822 standard) that can be later opened and read, copied or moved to Outlook Express.

Messages will be saved to the disk under the names made out of message subjects, excluding special characters. Numbers in brackets [] will be added to file names for message with the same subjects. For example, sample[1].eml is the first file with a duplicate name, sample [2].eml is the second file and so on.

5. Copying the recovered correspondence to a new Outlook Express dbx file

All messages saved as separate *.eml files can be copied or moved to Outlook Express. You can move either each file separately or all files at once.

To copy or move one file with the *.eml extension to Outlook Express, you should open it for viewing with a double click. After that select the Copy to Folder or Move to Folder item in the main menu of the window and select a folder from the list. Click OK after that.

To copy a group of saved *.eml files to Outlook Express, you should:

1. simultaneously run Outlook Express and Windows Explorer. To make it more comfortable to move files, place Outlook Express in the left part of the screen and Windows Explorer in the right part
2. select all files with messages you want to copy in Windows Explorer holding down the Ctrl key and clicking the files or using arrow keys while holding down the Shift key
3. capture the selected files by pressing and holding down the left mouse button on any of the selected files
4. drag the selected files to the Outlook Express folder

1. Searching for *.dbx files in Outlook Express Recovery Kit

Outlook Express Recovery Kit can search disks for *.dbx files. If the program does not automatically detect the location of *.dbx files for some reason or if you need to find some additional *.dbx files, use the feature of searching for *.dbx files. To use it, click the Search .dbx files button in the upper-right part of the program window. You can also start searching for *.dbx files from the main menu of the program by selecting the Search .dbx files item in the Tools submenu. After you enable the search, you will have to specify the extension of files Outlook Express Recovery Kit should search for and where it should search for files. By default, the program is configured to search for files with the *.dbx extension. After you specify both options, click the Search Now button. The program will search the specified location for *.dbx files and display the list of found files with the *.dbx extension in the right panel after the search is over. A double click on any file in the list or a click on the OK button will move the list of found files from the search window to the main Outlook Express Recovery Kit window.

2. Recovering mail messages in the batch mode

The features of Outlook Express Recovery Kit are not limited to this: you can also recover mail messages from corrupted *.dbx files in the batch mode. The batch mode is useful when you recover information from a large number of corrupted *.dbx files. Read more on page Repair Outlook Express by use the Batch Mode.

3. Recovering mail messages with the Recovery Wizard

When you start using Outlook Express Recovery Kit, you can recover messages from corrupted *.dbx files using the Recovery Wizard. The Recovery Wizard will be useful for those who begin using Outlook Express Recovery Kit so that they can learn the main steps in recovering data from a corrupted dbx file. Read more on page Repair Outlook Express by use the Recovery Wizard.