my friend gets this error also. The other day, she was all excited - she thought she figured it out - but then it didn't work the next time. What she did was to clean up her newsgroups first - then it compacted. but that only worked one time. I know we talked about this a while back, and no one came up with an answer to it that I recall. Some people said to delete different dbx folders - but that didn't work long term either. Someone sent in the OE website - http://www.insideoe.tomsterdam.com/ but no one was successful using anything from there either - as I recall. If you figure it out, please let me know! Cris ----- Original Message ----- From: donbriggs To: # PCTechTalk@Free Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 7:40 PM Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- HELP Please Compacting Folders I am about out of hair! Hi Group, Does anyone have a file named 'Folders File' anywhere on their computer. I have searched and hunted for it till I am blue in the face. Every time I try to compact my folders in Outlook Express I get an error that the 'Folders File' is in use, The choices are OK or Cancel, both of which terminate the compacting job. Rocky de Dragon -- <Please delete this line and everything below.> To unsub or change your email settings: //www.freelists.org/webpage/pctechtalk To access our Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PCTechTalk/messages/ //www.freelists.org/archives/pctechtalk/