Not everyone is using the latest and greatest email client such as Thunderbird or Outlook 2013 – many people still use Outlook Express because it’s simple and it works most of the time. It works well with Windows XP that is still in use even though Microsoft don’t support it anymore – anyway that’s another post ….
I came across a unusual issue today. Emails were being sent by Outlook Express (confirmed received by the recipient) but the emails went straight to the outbox (not sent box) and stayed there. The only way to get rid of them was to manually delete them.
The first thing you always do is check the mail settings. They were all good and the person was receiving emails just fine.
After a bit of googling and hitting the forums I found a possible solution.
Go to where the Outlook Express files are stored (navigate there from windows explorer or My Computer), and delete the outbox.dbx file as it could possibly corrupt.
I tried this, restarted Outlook Express but it made no difference. Back to the forums.
The next thing to try was to delete (or rename) the sent items.dbx file.
Before I did this I noticed this file was quite large (>2 Gig). I thought this will have to be it as Windows XP has a 2Gig file size limit with FAT32 file systems. Err what? If you need to know what I just said, leave a comment below 🙂
Anyway, I renamed the file to sent items.olddbx (just in case I needed the file back), restarted Outlook Express and Voila!
Emails were sending properly and going to the sent mailbox as they should!
Where are the Outlook Express files located?
C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{123456-ABCDEF}\Microsoft\Outlook Express
Note: [username] – the logged on user
{123456-ABCDEF} – A unique alphanumeric string
You may need to change the below setting to view hidden files (under tools>folder options):
Did that work for you? Leave a message below.