Welcome to Ashraf's Blog: Repair Outlook Express 2Gb DBX file

Windows

Even if we are still in 2013, some people still use Outlook Express (usually v.6 with Windows XP).The main problem of it, it’s the 2GB size limit for Inbox or Sent messages.

The error received is 0x800c0133 when trying to Send / Receive email. Also your INBOX may seem to be empty.
Outlook Express stores its messages in DBX files. To locate theese files you need to go in Outlook Express in : Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder.

Locate the .dbx files and check if any of them has reached 2GB in size. If it’s not the case, this means one of the files may be damaged.

If you don’t care about the messages, you can rename the corresponding file. (If INBOX is empty rename inbox.dbx to something else, if Sent is empty rename sent.dbx to something else, and so on).

Close Outlook Express.

First thing to do is check for .bak files located in the same folder. They may be hidden, so be sure to check the “Show hidden files and folders” in Windows. If the INBOX seems empty, then rename inbox.dbx to something else, then rename the inbox.bak file to inbox.dbx.

Try to Open Outlook Express. If it’s still not working then you need to use a .DBX repair tool.

I recommend UnDBX – a free utility. This program can read a DBX file and export the messages as EML files. Thees files can then be imported in other email programs like Mozilla Thunderbird (by drag and drop).

It also has a “recovery checkbox” that can be used with damaged DBX files.