MC, thanks, but they are already set that way. Tried cycling thru, no luck.
SD, OE opened like a virgin install, all added subfolders etc were gone. There are 438 Mb of messages/.dbx files in the message repository, so I got the program to import from there. That restored most of the subfolders/new folders I had created, but only a handful of messages, ended up viewable, mostly from the day the thing happened. I am at a loss to know what is causing the folder to occupy so much space yet be able to import so few messages.