Rowena, The e-mail client Outlook Express, like many other mail clients, stores the mail in one or more flies with, in the case of Outlook, a .PST extension. This acts like a database and Outlook manages the creation, storage and deletion of mail items and attachments inside it. As a consequence there are not individual files relating to mail items, they are just 'somewhere' in a file like OUTLOOK.PST. If you delete an e-mail in Outlook it is usually just moved to a different Outlook folder called Deleted Items (in the same .PST) - your individual set-up of Outlook may chose keep them there 'forever' or remove them completely according to some rule you have set up (like when they are more than 100 days old, or whatever). Up to that point the e-mails are as accessible as any other e-mail in Inbox, Sent Mail etc. HOWEVER, if you delete an e-mail item that is in the Deleted Items folder in Outlook OR your Outlook set-up is set to 'really' delete Deleted Items then they are completely removed from the system and will never be recoverable. Two points: 1) Even though these e-mails have been deleted they still take up space in the .PST file, so if the objective of deleting a load of e-mails was to recover wasted space it will not have helped. You can, however, compact the .PST file(s) by right-clicking on the INBOX (and any other separate .PST systems loaded) and take the Properties option. One of the tabs then offers a Compact option. This quickly rebuilds the .PST file with just the undeleted contents. 2) If you wish to avoid the danger of losing stuff through over exuberant e-mail pruning then it may be an idea to make a copy of all the .PST files (probably only 1 or 2) perhaps adding a date to the name BEFORE hacking about in the undergrowth. Do the copy with Outlook NOT running. I do this at least quarterly and then hack out items that are more than, say, 6 months old, knowing that I can always go back to an old copy in the future. But DO NOT overwrite your current one in that case, there are ways of attaching (temporarily) your old PST file in parallel with the then-current one to look at and possibly drag out old stuff into your current PST. It's in the Help files but ask again if that situation occurs. Mike _____ From: u3aavcuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:u3aavcuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of rowena@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: 26 March 2009 16:58 To: u3aavcuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [u3aavcuss] deleted e-mails Hello CUSS, Have recently had some work done on computer - removing spyware etc, which resulted in 200 old and new e-mails appearing in Outlook Express inbox. Have deleted most of these ( and deleted deleted items ) but they are not in recycle bin. Where might they be please ? Rowena. No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.0.238 / Virus Database: 270.11.29/2023 - Release Date: 03/25/09 18:54:00