look toward the upper left corner- ought to be a thing that says you have Xmessages. if you click on that you will get a panel that will be easy enough to figure out and get going. later, it will say that you have an incoming message total up there. anyhow, when you want to send, or just check for messages, that's the place to go.

jlwade:

The PM button is always enabled and shows up on every post, so there is no option to enable or disable it.

The system does not show the PM box on your own posts, because why would you want to PM yourself?

See attached for what your post looks like to me.

calledflyer:

I cannot say it has NO effect on forum speed, but it is minimal and probably not noticeable to most users. The biggest effect would be the size of my backups and the time to transfer them offsite. Thank you for clearing out the old messages anyway

and I thank you for answering my query. I didn't figure it was a big deal, not having been brought up prior. at least as far as I could see. but I don't mind a little spring cleaning, even in the height of summer