I always click yes and I just deleted my sent mail. I went to edit, select all and right clicked on the blue area and chose delete. worked for me.

You may find some help at the link below. Check out point #2. (And maybe the links at the top right of the page will help address your concerns.)

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#2

Thanks for responding. I've tried deleting the way you said, stargazzer, but it doesn't work. I don't know if it makes a difference, but when I select all, it is not a blue area, but a gray background.
not2bright, I'm looking at the links you posted, but so far I've not found anything addressing this problem. I'll keep reading.
Thanks for helping

not2bright, I'm looking at the links you posted, but so far I've not found anything addressing this problem. I'll keep reading.

Hi,

Sorry for not being clear. I really don't know that much about it, but the info at the site I linked to suggested that when your deleted message store gets to be a large size (and you are asked if you want to compact) it can take quite a while for the compacting to complete. Perhaps this is what you were experiencing. "They" also suggest never stopping/interrupting the compacting process because of the possible corruption that can occur. So they say to manually compact more often. Perhaps trying again to compact (File > Folder > Compact All Folders) and just wait to see if the compacting process completes. And only then try to delete the ones in the Sent folder, after which do another compacting. Just a suggestion from an OE user/amateur.

As for your initial concern (Does choosing the yes option on compacting messages when logging out of Outlook Express make the messages impossible to be deleted?) No, the opposite. It deletes them permanently and frees up the space previously occupied by the deleted emails.

Here's another comment/tip or two from the OE newsgroup:

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.***

......

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.

Hi, not2bright, thanks for your help. I have finally got things back to normal, with your help and some phone help. I've used OE for many years, and never realized the importance of deleting and compacting til now. I will be more diligent in the future to not let the folders get so big.
Thanks again
Janette

Glad everything worked out for you.

For future reference, the Outlook Express Newsgroup is very helpful at times like this. You can find it online at the link below, or you can subscribe to the newsgroup using Outlook Express as follows:

Tools > Accounts > Add > News. For server use: msnews.microsoft.com. After clicking Finish, you will click "close" on the accounts window and you will be asked if you want to download a list of available newsgroups. Click "Yes" and scroll down to : microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general. Highlight it and click 'subscribe.' Then OK. Then click on the outlookexpress newsgroup in the OE folder list and it will download messages.

Hope this helps. :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Outlook Express Newsgroup