University of Wisconsin-River Falls
Info & NewsFacilitiesSupportServicesConnections SearchHelp
ITS HomepageSupport

Repairing corrupt mailboxes in Eudora for Windows

This document describes what to do when Eudora displays the wrong things (or nothing at all) when you try to open a mailbox.

Important note: Certain versions of Eudora are much more likely to have this problem than others. If you experience this problem often, please request an update of your Eudora client.

Sometimes the table of contents files that keep track of where one message starts and another stops get corrupt. If this happens, opening a message may display the contents of another message. Or the message may not open at all. Or the contents of the message may be corrupt.

In all likelihood, your email is just fine on the mail server and it is just this table of contents file that is corrupt and needs rebuilding.

Procedure for rebuilding all Eudora mailboxes

  1. First, exit Eudora. Do not just minimize Eudora, but exit the program so it isn't running anymore.
  2. Start Windows Explorer. You can do this by pressing the Windows key and the E key at the same time.
  3. Find your Eudora data folder. If you are using version 5.2 of Eudora, this is probably H:\Eudora. If you are using Eudora version 6, it is probably C:\Eudora. When you find the Eudora data folder, it will contain lots of files and folders.
  4. Look for a folder named Imap. Open this and look for a folder named Dominant.
  5. Rename the Dominant folder by right-clicking it and choosing Rename from the pop-up menu. Rename it to Dominant.old .
    Note: If there is also a Dominant.1 or similar folders, these may need to be renamed as well.
    Note: If you have done this before and there are other Dominant.old mailboxes, please delete these.
  6. Close Windows Explorer and restart Eudora. As Eudora starts, you may receive some error messages about missing mailboxes. Click OK to the error messages.
  7. Once Eudora is running right-click the Dominant item in the mailbox list and choose Refresh Mailbox List from the pop-up menu.
  8. Open the mailboxes and check that everything is working OK. If you were sorting by certain columns or had set custom column widths, those features will need to be reset.

If you are still having difficulty, please contact IT Services.


More Eudora support

UW-River Falls Home PageUW-River Falls General InfoSearch
Web site comments [email link]
Need immediate assistance?
Call the HelpDesk at (715) 425-4357 (HELP)
Site Map  |  
Google Custom Search
Last modified: August 23, 2007