compacted store

[wiganshale]

I got fed up with the "we can compact your message store" pop-up and
foolishly gave my assent.
I very soon wished to look at a "sent" message and, of course, it had
disappeared. I am now going hairless trying to find how to recover my
"compacted" messages. Presumably nobody else has tried to do this, as there
seems to be absolutely nothing anywhere, suggesting that this might be a
desirable feature or even a possibility.
Just a simple message, about recovering this, to me, lost personal
information, would be nice.

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

By default the compaction process asks to run after you've opened
and closed Windows Mail 100 times. That frequency can be adjusted
under Tools, Options, Advanced, Maintenance. Once you let it do its
thing, it should not bother you again for another 100 runs.
Unlike OE, Windows Mail doesn't need message compaction, it only needs
message store (database) compaction. It compacts the database which is an
index or lookup table for the messages. Every time you delete an email, that
slot in the database is made into a blank. Compaction removes all the blank
spaces that have developed in the database. Periodic removal of the blanks
will make database accesses faster.

Compaction should not have affected any of your messages.
Open the 'Sent Items' folder and then make sure View, Current View,
is set for "Show All Messages". If that setting was already correct,
which antivirus are you running? Some of them cause problems with
Windows Mail over time.

 

[Dave]

The "compaction of the message store" does nothing to your messages.

Look at your Sent folder, and see if the View is set to Hide Read
Messages...
View - Current View - Show All Messages