Let it do it, its taking the messages you have save and going to compact them to give you more room

From an OE Newsgroup:

Why does OE insist on compacting folders when I close it?:
http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/why.htm#compact

About File Corruption:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/filecorruption.mspx

Compacting your folders periodically is a must to keep OE functioning well
and at some point, you may lose all your saved messages if you don't. When
you delete, or move messages, the space they had used remains until you
compact.

***Never touch anything until the compacting is finished.***

See:
www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#2

With SP2, automatic background compacting was removed due to problems it
caused. Now you will get a prompt to compact after 100 OE closings, which
you should do, and don't touch anything until it has finished. If you
compact manually, at your convenience, this will also set the counter back
to zero. See this for more information:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

If you are fully patched, you will also now see a copy of your dbx files
being copied to the Recycle Bin as BAK files. Should something go awry when
compacting, the messages can easily be restored from this backup. A manual
compact will also reset the counter in the registry back to zero now.

For more info, see the information outlined in red here:
www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#2

To keep things running smooth, and for faster compacting:

Do not archive mail in default OE folders. They will eventually become
corrupt and you may lose mail. Create your own user defined folders for
storing mail and move your mail to them. Empty Deleted Items folder
regularly. Keep user created folders under 100MB, and Default folders as
empty as is feasible.

And backup often.

Backup and Restore:

http://www.insideoutlookexpress.com/backup/

http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx

It does it to mine every couple of months. I don't have much mail saved at all.

Thanks folks. Now I understand what it's all about.

Kevin

I've never done this and am wondering how the compacted messages are opened... Where are they stored?

Thank you.

It's seamless. When you click on compacted messages, they open just like a more recent message.

Pam

Thank you for asking, and answering, that question. I have always wondered that. In fact it is why I never click to compact. I wasn't sure what happened to them. Now I know it is easy to get to them again.

Thank you! :)