Messages Disappearing From Outlook IN Box

[stevem326]

In the last few days I've noticed something very odd in my Outlook IN Box. I'm running XP Pro with MS Office 2002 installed and in the past week three messages in my IN Box have simply vanished. I'm 100% certain that I am not deleting them myself. I'm not a PC expert but I consider myself to have advanced knowledge. I'm running Symantec anti-virus software, Webroot Spysweeper, Ad Aware SE, and Spybot. My OS and Office software have all of the latest security patches. I run Check Disk and defrag on a regular basis with PerfectDisk by Raxco Software. I've had PC's for more than 10 years and I've never had this happen before.

Is this just some strange anomaly or is someone actually getting into my IN Box somehow and deleting stuff? There's probably no way I can tell unless I spend the money to hire someone who's a real expert (which I can't do). I just find it very strange how a three messages can just disappear all by themselves.

 

[bsobel]

a) Perhaps someoone recalled the message?
b) Updated spam defs for one of your tools pulled the message out of an update let it recognize it as spam?

Did you already read the messages or at least subject, where they spam, personal, work, etc (e.g. any pattern to them?)

 

[stevem326]

Originally posted by: bsobel
a) Perhaps someoone recalled the message?
b) Updated spam defs for one of your tools pulled the message out of an update let it recognize it as spam?

Did you already read the messages or at least subject, where they spam, personal, work, etc (e.g. any pattern to them?)

a) It's possible...but I think the way Outlook works is that once the message is open and read (and in this case it was) it cannot be recalled...I think so anyway.

b) Possible, too...but spam email is put into a "Junk" folder and saved there for 30 days before being deleted. I checked this folder and none of the messages were moved there.

To your last question...the messages were all definitely spam but I opened them anyway. I didn't click on any links or anything...just simply opened them.

 

[John]

1) Password protect your user account and outlook .pst with a new password
2) Configure and use Outlook Express or Thunderbird for a week and see if messages still disappear.

 

[stevem326]

Thanks for the advice...I'll give this a try!

 

[Athena]

What kind of mailbox -- POP, IMAP, or Exchange Server?

What view are you using -- e.g are you hiding hidden messages in an IMAP folder?

 

[stevem326]

Originally posted by: Athena
What kind of mailbox -- POP, IMAP, or Exchange Server?

What view are you using -- e.g are you hiding hidden messages in an IMAP folder?

I'm using a POP3 mailbox and my view is set to message headers only (I have the preview pane turned off so all I see is the address of the sender and the subject line).