I have Outlook Express 6 and it periodically compacts my messages. It always hangs up on my biggest folder (the one with all the jokes and video clips.) It will say "This folder is in use by OE or another application." I've tried compacting just the Jokes folder and it will get about 3/4 through, then give me the same message. I notice that when I go to the Recycle Bin to delete the old backups from the compacting, the Jokes folder isn't there. Any ideas? Thanks.

Yeah, it has degraded. I have the same problem. I get a no-disk-space message even though when I run a utility I have 720 Mb avail. on my hard drive C: and 105 Gb avail. on my D: drive. I have deleted all but 14 messages from my in-box. About the same in my 'sent messages'. Still the silly messages. Just not worth the hassle.

I went to gMail which I much prefer.
Free here.
I think Microsoft has deliberately introduced faults into a previously pretty decent piece of software to help boost it's latest edition.

But who needs Microsoft?

It is likely that one or more of the messages in the folder have become corrupted. You could try dragging the messages from the current jokes folder into a newly created folder and compacting. If it were me, I would do this with about 10 or so at a time and when I get to the point where it will not compact, narrow it down from there. When the bad one is found, I suggest you delete it.

You could also just delete all the messages in the folder if you prefer. More about compacting in OE This link will show you an efficient way of compacting manually.

Dwight, I should have come back and thanked you earlier. I went through the whole folder, compacting about 35 at a time, and never got the "in use" message. That folder had seven years of jokes, video clips, etc. I split it into three folders and haven't had a problem since, so I think the poor Compactor was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the folder. I promise I'm doing my best to delete a lot of stuff!