Member Avatar for misschillout

Hi All,

My Outlook Express seems rather sluggish. How can i speed it up and prevent it from crashing.

I have compact all folders, But not sure if that is the problem.

Any advice would be nice.

Thank you

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by MidiMagic

Dani AI

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Following up on the suggestions from and , here are Outlook Express 6–specific checks and fixes that often turn a sluggish, crash-prone client into something usable again. These steps avoid generic network or browser advice and target OE's message store, rendering/extension behavior, and interactions with antivirus software.

First, back up the OE message store before changing anything. The store lives in a hidden folder such as:

C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\<GUID>\Microsoft\Outlook Express\

Copy that entire folder to another drive so you can restore if needed. After backing up, test performance by creating a clean identity (File > Identities > Add...) and running OE under it. If a fresh identity is snappier, import only the folders you need rather than restoring everything at once.

Next, reduce what OE has to render and process. Turn off the reading/preview pane and disable any OE extensions. Save large attachments out to disk and remove them from mail, and move older mail into separate archive folders so each DBX file is smaller. Also review message rules—complex rules can slow message processing.

Antivirus integration is a common hidden culprit. Temporarily disable the AV mail-scanner (only for a short test). If OE becomes noticeably faster, add the OE store folder to your AV product’s exclusions and re-enable protection. Be cautious with exclusions—only exclude the specific OE store path and re-enable scanning of delivered files.

Finally, check the local machine: ensure adequate free disk space, run a file-system check/repair, and defragment if using a spinning disk. If the DBX files are corrupted and rebuilding identities doesn’t help, consider exporting important mail and moving to a more modern mail client (for example, Windows Live Mail or Thunderbird) that handles larger stores and corruption more gracefully.

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Member Avatar for dcc

Have you run any scans for infections?

Is it just the browser or are other applications running slow?

I had always found IE to be slow, this is one of the reasons that I now use Firefox. There is a tweak that you can do to Firefox after it's installed to make it even faster.

Member Avatar for MidiMagic

File compression slows things down.

It could also be that your internet connection is slow.

Or maybe you have thousands of letters in your inbox.

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