Compacting your folders periodically is a must to keep OE
functioning well and at some point, you may lose all your saved messages if
you don't.

With SP2, automatic background compacting was removed due to
problems it caused. Now you will get a prompt to compact after 100
OE closings, which you should do and don't touch anything until it has
finished. See this for more information:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

To keep things running smooth, and for faster compacting:

Do not archive mail in default OE folders. They will eventually
become corrupt and you may lose mail. Create your own user
defined folders for storing mail and move your mail to them.
Empty Deleted Items folder regularly. Keep user created folders
under 100MB, and Default folders as empty as is feasible.

And this is a very good option:

Steve Cochran has added a button in his new version of OE Tool
that will not only Compact All Folders, but at the same time,
resets the "Compact Check Count" to zero whenever you compact
manually. You will see the prompt again if you do not compact
before 100 closings.

http://www.oehelp.com/OETool/

It is still advised to check Work Offline before you compact.

Backing up OE is always good advice.

Backup and Resto

http://www.insideoutlookexpress.com/backup/

http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx

http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx
--
Bruce Hagen
MS MVP - Outlook Express
~IB-CA~


"dnamertz" wrote in message
...
Ever since I downloaded an Outlook update, I get a message each time I
close
Outlook Express saying "To free up disk space, Outlook Express can compact
messages." Should I let it? What will happen to the emails sitting in my
inbox and delete folders?