Outlook Express and Compacting Messages

[writeco]

Now, whenever I close out of OE I get message asking me if I want to compact my messages to save space. I have deleted all the messages that I want and have removed any attachments with the saved e-mails. The question is annoying. Can it be turned off?

[dale@fcg]

How about your Sent Items folder?

[Dan18960]

Joe,

I can't see anyplace where it can be changed - but I usually let it go ahead and compact. It takes out a lot of empty space in the folders and frees up space where you have deleted messages in folders. Remember nothing is ever forgotten in a computer.

[Terry Hanushek]

Joe

I have never seen this compact message from Outlook Express but OE is a secondary and rather inactive email program for me (My primary email program is from Compuserve). Based on my experience, I'm led to believe that the compact warning is based on volume of storage required for your saved messages. I looked through every nook and cranny of the Tools | Options tab and could find no way to switch off the compact question. Since there are other options in the Maintenance | Cleaning Up Messages section relating to compacting messages (Delete read newsgroup items, etc.) it appears that the compacting threshold / warning message is not optional.

In addition to the Sent Items folder (which you might want to keep), I presume that you have emptied the Delete Items folder. I tend to accumulate a considerable volume in this folder from a List server to which I have subscribed. You seem to be very thorough so I doubt that there is much, if any, more to be deleted.

Other than cleaning out additional items, it appears that you have to live with the message. Other than being annoying, it does not seem to be hurting you performance or endangering you filed emails.

Terry

[writeco]

I did some research on compacting in OE and it is not a bad thing. Rather, it is a recommended, regular procedure since space for deleted messages is not actually released. The deleted messages are tagged as being deleted but the space is still consumed. I also thought that compacting was like zipping files and every time you wanted to open a compacted e-mail, you had go through a unzipping process. This does not appear to be the case.

[mylanta]

Sorry you couldn't join us on paltalk last night as we talked about this for quite a while and the consensus is that if the compacting occurred while you were writing in the program, that could be a problem but it does not as the request to compact only comes up monthly after you have signalled to close the program.
OE can become really "bloated" and when it does, it will move very slowly so we also feel that the compacting is a good thing. I personally used to delete vast sections of OE twice a year which I guess I stopped doing in the last year, and when I did that I never saw the compacting messages but correct, it isn't that you need to unzip compacted messages to use them, they in fact appear no different when you see them.

[casey]

I get this message regularly but since it only takes a matter of seconds to finish it never bothered me.