Outlook Express Recovery Tool

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 Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express:

• 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 Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express.

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 Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express 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 Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express.

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 Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express 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 Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express. 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. Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express 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. Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express 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 Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express 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 Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express 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 Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express.

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 Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express

Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express 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 Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express 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 Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express window.

2. Recovering mail messages in the batch mode

The features of Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express 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.

1. Selecting the path to the .dbx file

In this step, you should specify the path to the dbx file used by the Outlook Express mail client to store messages you want to recover. By default, the first option in the drop-down list of Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express will be the path to the .dbx file Outlook Express uses to store the current user's messages. Other paths in the list are previously used paths to those folders on the hard drive where *.dbx files were detected. If you do not know the path to the dbx file you are interested in, use the internal dbx file search features of Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express. The dbx file search window of Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express is similar to that in Windows Explorer. To activate the search, click the Search .dbx files button . Select where to search in the left panel of the program (local disk, floppy disk, CD or DVD). Click the Search Now button to start searching. When the search is over, select the dbx file you are interested in in the right panel of the program and click the OK button. The path will be added to the Source Folder Path field in the Recovery Wizard of Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express. After you specify the path to the .dbx file you want to recover, you can move on to the next recovery step by clicking the Next button.

2. Selecting the .dbx file

In the second recovery step, you select the .dbx file containing messages you want to recover. Specify which file Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express should process. After that move on to the third recovery step (the Next button).

3. Reading and recovering messages from the corrupted dbx file

Click the Start Read/Recovery button to activate the process of reading and recovering correspondence from the corrupted dbx file. If you need to recover deleted messages as well, select the Recovery Deleted E-mails checkbox (selected by default). In this case, the recovery process will take longer. The process of recovering messages from the corrupted .dbx file will take some time depending on the size of the file being processed and the performance of the computer. The reading progress bar informs you about the stage the process of recovering messages from the corrupted file is in. After the process is over, move on to the next recovery step (the Next button).

4. Selecting the path for saving extracted messages

In this information recovery step, you specify the path where recovered messages should be saved. There are 4 ways to save messages:

• Manually enter the path into the E-mail(s) Save Folder field
• Select the path from the E-mail(s) Save Folder drop-down list
• Click button and select the path in Windows Explorer
• Specify the path after selecting the corresponding item in the submenu of the Action menu in the main menu of the Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express tool (Save Checked e-mails, Save Current e-mail or Save All e-mails for saving all selected messages, saving only the current message or saving all recovered messages)

By default, Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express will offer you the last path used to save recovered messages. This path will be the first option in the drop-down menu. Other paths are also path used to save information before. The Next button will take you to the final recovery step.

5. Saving messages extracted from the corrupted .dbx file

The final step in recovering messages from the corrupted *.dbx file is saving messages to the disk. Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express offers you the following options:

• Save all selected messages
• Save only the current message
• Save all recovered messages

To create a list of messages to be saved, select the checkboxes next to each message you want to save to the disk.

Choose one of the saving methods. Click the button corresponding to this option (Save Checked, Save Current and Save All respectively) to save messages to the disk as *.eml files (RFC822 standard).

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

All messages saved to the disk can be viewed in Outlook Express and, if necessary, easily copied or moved to Outlook Express folders or any other mail client supporting the *.eml message extension.

After messages are saved, Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express will display statistics on the processed *.dbx files, the number of recovered and saved messages.

The recovery of message from the corrupted *.dbx file with the Recovery Wizard of Recovery Toolbox for Outlook Express is successfully finished.