Saving MP3's and other Multi-Part Files in Outlook Express

When you see a file you want to download from a newsgroup, you may notice it will have the subject name, which is usually the name of the file along with some additional numbers.

1 of 21 for instance will usually mean there are twenty-one total files in the group.

(1/21), (2/21), (3/21)....... (21/21) are the part of that one file.

You will need all parts of the file to be able to combine and decode it. If you're missing a part, it will not work exactly like you would like if at all.

Download all parts of the file. In the first part, you will see a Paperclip, however, that will not save the whole file, only that part.

The rest will look like gibberish, ignore that, since it is the encoded part to allow a binary file to be transferred in a text environment.

Once you have all the parts, highlight them.

Either CTRL click on each part if they are not in order or if they are in order, click on the first one, then SHIFT click on the last one to highlight all parts in between.

Right click on the highlighted messages. Doesn't matter where at on them.

Select Combine and Decode

A dialog box will appear showing the parts of the file in each message. If they are not in order 1,2,3,4,5 and so on, move the part that is out of order in to it's proper order. Once done, press OK.

The file will decode and a new message will appear with the file as an attachment.

Right click on the attachment and select Save As...

Save the file to the location you want and close the window.

One thing about downloading a lot of these messages, is they take up space on your hard drive in the messages stores (DBX files).

After you have saved several of these, you may want to free up that space.

Right click on the newsgroup from the Folder List and select Properties.

Next select Local File.

Press the Remove Messages button to clear them. Make a note here, if there are some text messages that you want to save, copy them to another folder in Outlook Express or to a folder on the hard drive.

After removing the messages, press the Compact button to compact the message store.