Software

From the Properties dialog box for the C drive (I assume this has the OS), run Disk Cleanup from the General tab, next under the Tools tab left-click the Check Now button for Error Checking (if the OS is XP, it wants to run at startup so reboot now).

When done, defrag the HD and try to delete the files in Outlook Express. By the way, if it hasn't been defraged for a while (as I suspect), defrag 3 times for better performance. The MS defrag program is a little weak.

It's possible that your deleted items dbx file is corrupt.
Make sure there is nothing important in your deleted items before trying this.
Open Outlook Express. Go to Tools, Options. Click on the maintenance TAB. Click on Store Folder. This is the location of your emails and deleted items. Copy the location into your clipboard. Close outlook express. Paste the location into Start, Run and click open. This will take you to the outlook express folder on your C: drive. Delete the deleted items.dbx file. Restart outlook express and see if it runs better. It will re-create the deleted items.dbx file.

I went over today to work on the problem and first i checked all the settings and connection settings. They were basically okay. Second thing i noticed was the fact that he had 8 Accounts in the All tab, only one was necessary and removed extras. Next, I checked the properties of the Inbox and found that there were over 700 emails! But we could not telling it to delete or transfer manually to the Delete Folder. So I compacted the Inbox, which took about 15 minutes! I was using the basic principle of too much stuff slows the machine as my thought. Then we could delete items from the Inbox or otherwise. Also, we could now send and email directly from the program, instead of only when the program is closed out and it asks if we wish to send the waiting emails now. Then i showed my friend how to block senders, create Mail Rules for wanted and unwanted senders. After an hour and a half, the Outlook Express was now almost normal in speed. He still had to do more deletion and sorting before he was finished.
Outlook Express was bogged down and could not function anymore.

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