If you have already emptied/deleted them from the Deleted Items folder they are gone absent a successful use of an application such as RECUVA which will be iffy. If you haven't and cannot find any Deleted Items folder, have you opened the Local Folder and/or any named dedicated folder by clicking on the + in front of it? This will reveal an account's tree. DA

Ok, OE is an email client. You can utilize it to set up your email from various providers (comcast, verizon, ect) If, for instance your email address was joe_nm@comcast.net, someone conceivably could go right to comcast.net and log in with your email address and actual email password (if they knew it)and access your email. That's the point that I was trying to make about your comment "info says this does not prevent access to messages outside OE.". Identities in OE are fairly safe if your family members don't have the password and you remember to log off after using it. It's certainly not iron clad, but is fairly good protection.

I have never heard of an ISP that told you what to use as your email address. Are you talking about your ISP when you say your provider or something else? When I set up our comcast I set up an email address similar to what you are saying with some initals and part of the name. I never use it but set it up just in case I should need one and to get any correspondence from comcast should they email me. I later decided to tie that email account to my ebay account and ebay came back and said that email address was already in use by someone. HUMMM well how can that be? So I created a different one at comcast and used it. Fast forward to last week when just for the heck of it I decided to go check on those comcast addys to see if there was any mail. Well that first one had a ton of spam in it and several emails from someone with the same initals/name and it looks like he also has that same email address. It has not been an issue for me since I just do not use that address but I was able to open all those emails of his and they were business related and some were legal. I am sure he would not be happy about that I know I would not be happy. I have no idea how comcast let that happen, each email address should be unique and never be allowed once someone has locked it in. the other 2nd comcast one I set up and ended up tieing to my ebay had zero spam and only email from ebay in it. very weird and sounds like maybe something very similar is happening in your case. If so the ISP should be able to check those 2 accounts and see why exactly that is happening. Definitely check your full headers and get all the routing info and let them have that info so they can sort it out. you may have to ask how to show full headers each email client is different, I have not used outlook express in ages.

I'll take a guess just for fun.... Click Tools > Options > Connection > Setup (Starts the Wizard) > Next. This brings up a choice of 4 options. The one chosen should be 'Connect to the Internet' If not then choose it and complete the wizard routine.