Repair DBX File for Smart Outlook Express Recovery

Written By Shreyansh Gautam
Updated on March 11th, 2022

Do you know that there’s no computer file immune to corruption? Be it a document, database, or an email file, every single computer file is prone to corruption. Email corruption can cause serious damage to users. Email files contain highly crucial information which you may lose due to corruption. So if the email file is corrupt, you may lose all your invaluable mailbox content. In this blog post, we’ll talk about Outlook Express client and its email file DBX. Also, we’ll see how corruption takes place in DBX files and how we can repair DBX file to perform Outlook Express recovery.

Outlook Express

I know Outlook Express is a discontinued email cum news client, but still some old organizations and home are users using it. It was formerly known as Microsoft Internet Mail and News included with Internet Explorer versions 3.0 through to 6.0. So it means if you’re using a Windows system, i.e. from Windows 98 to Windows Server 2003, you have Outlook Express as a built-in email client. Many people think that Outlook Express is a stripped-down version of MS Outlook client. Why? Just because both their names are quite similar. But the fact is that Outlook Express and MS Outlook, both are different email clients. The only similarity is that both are email clients provided by Microsoft, and both need at least one email account.

How to use Outlook Express?

It’s very easy to use Outlook Express email client. You just need one email account, that’s it. Just configure an email account correctly, and you’re ready to use it. At a time, you can add multiple email accounts to Outlook Express.

Microsoft Outlook Express

Outlook Express creates DBX folder to store email messages for a specific mailbox. For example, the Inbox.dbx folder stores the email messages which you receive from other users, the Sent Items.dbx folder stores the email messages you send to other users. Other folders are Drafts.dbx, and Deleted Items.dbx. There’s one more DBX folder in Outlook Express, named Folders.dbx. It stores the master index for all the mailboxes. If the Folder.dbx file is missing, Outlook Express re-indexes the mailboxes and creates it again. The DBX folders are saved within the “Documents and Settings” user directory. This is all about the Outlook Express client and its email file DBX. Now let’s talk about the major issue, corruption.

Outlook Express Corruption

Just like any other computer file, DBX file is also prone to corruption. There are numerous reasons which can cause Outlook Express corruption, and lead to permanent data loss. Due to corruption, you may lose all your important email messages stored in the DBX files. The most common reason is DBX file size limitation. Like Outlook data file (PST), a DBX file also suffers from the size limitation issue. The maximum size limitation of DBX file is 2 GB. It means you can’t store more than 2 GB of mailbox content in a DBX file. Because if you do that, the DBX file becomes prone to corruption. So you should make sure that the DBX file never reaches its maximum size limit.

Some other common reasons include virus infection; compacting DBX files’ size; abruptly cancellation of Outlook Express; system power failure; hard disk crash; software malfunction; poor Internet connection; etc. These are some common reasons which cause Outlook Express corruption and lead to data loss. Whenever you face corruption, the only thing you can try is to repair PST file to perform Outlook Express recovery.

List of Error Messages

Let’s see what error messages we can encounter due to Outlook Express corruption:

Outlook Express: The message could not be sent. There is not enough Disk space.
MSIMN caused an invalid page fault in module Directdb.dll.
MSIMN caused an exception C0000006h in module Directdb.dll.
Unknown error has occurred. Protocol: SMTP Port: 0 Secure: No [SSL] Error: 0x800c0131.
Outlook Express could not be started because Msoe.dll could not be initialized. Outlook Express may not be installed correctly.

Repair DBX File Via Backup

If you’ve backed up the DBX files earlier, you can successfully restore them. So before you can try to repair DBX file, use the backup. By using the backup, you can restore your DBX files’ content without repairing them.

Also Read: How to Convert DBX to MS Outlook Manually?

Outlook Express Recovery

If the above manual trick fails or doesn’t work for you, then you should use a professional solution for Outlook Express recovery. There are many vendors in the market which provide such Outlook Express recovery solutions. Most of them are available with free demo or trial version. So before you can purchase any such paid software, you should download the demo or trial version for free evaluation. DBX Recovery Software is one the best Outlook Express recovery solutions available in the market. It can repair DBX file and restore Outlook Express email messages from it.

There are three recovery modes to handle the different level of corruption: Standard, Advanced, and Deep. You can select single as well as multiple DBX files for Outlook Express recovery. Via this software, you can restore maximum possible email messages from DBX files and save them into a new file of DBX, MSG, EML, PST, and RTF formats. By using demo version, you can scan corrupt DBX file and check the preview of your mailbox content which you can actually recover from it. Due to a limitation in the demo version, you can save first 10 email messages from each selected mailbox folder into the new file(s).

About The Author:

Shreyansh Gautam

As a content writer, I specialize in Email Migration, Data Recovery, Email Backup, and File Management. I have been writing professionally for two years now. There is so much information available in this field that I am intrigued by the newer technologies and techniques.