Hi

I believe you are right as to the % means how much storage you have used.

When you delete items and empty the trash, you also need to 'compact' the folders where you have deleted messages. Otherwise the space is still used up with data marked for removal but not, well, physically removed by compacting to make that space re-usable.

This explains further:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/compacting-folders

Regards, Agnes

Thanks, Agnes.

I went to the link and followed the instructions. I had already emptied the trash and then did the manual compact which resulted in freeing up 2.1 GB. But the bottom pane still showed 84% usage even after closing Thunderbird and reopening it. So I restarted the computer and opened up Thunderbird and the 84% was still there. This was after having deleting more than 5,000 emails prior to which the percentage shown was 82%.

Perhaps there is some other setting(s) that must be adjusted? Or something else I am missing?

The figure you are discussing will be the IMAP quota utilization. Each IMAP mail account has a set amount of space allocated to it on the mail server. You are being informed that you have used some 80 odd percent of your available sever storage. Moving mail to "local Folders" from the IMAP account will free space on the "server" as the mail is subsequently only stored on your local hard disk. The downside is it is only available locally. The up side is your storage is only limited by the size of your hard disk in "Local Folders"

Hi Andy and Matt Agreed if this is an IMAP account, that is the server storage limit. However if IMAP, I m not sure why the quote started at 82%, then after deleting 5,000 emails and emptying trash, the quota was 84%? Some other step needed on the webmail end to completely remove those emails?

Hi Andy and Matt Agreed if this is an IMAP account, that is the server storage limit. However if IMAP, I m not sure why the quote started at 82%, then after deleting 5,000 emails and emptying trash, the quota was 84%? Some other step needed on the webmail end to completely remove those emails?

Deleting the emails makes a copy in the trash, but as the folder has not been compacted the original deleted copies are not expunged server side from their original folders, just marked as deleted. I am assuming that the 5000 email amounted to about 2% of the server quota. The easiest way to actually see this is change the account setting in server settings to "just mark it as deleted" when you delete a message. Then the un-expunged messages you have deleted show in the folder with a strike-through until the are expunged. It is the recommended setting google offers for their accounts, but it really can confuse folks that are unfamiliar with IMAP and the quirky thing expunge actually is.

That same Server settings panel has an expunge inbox on exit which does help. But regular use of compact will see deleted mail expunged as a part of the compact. But as you suggest Agnes, further server side action is required and that action is the issuing of an expunge command.

There is a config editor preference mail.imap.expunge_after_delete which can be set to True which forces an expunge when the option to "Move it to this folder:" is the chosen delete action. This forces the serer side action of expunge without the Thunderbird side compact action. Just a word of caution on this one. It is not for use with Google accounts. They have a google mail web site setting for auto expunging and they ignore the expunge commands Thunderbird sends.

Matt, Andy

Matt, that is far the best explanation I've seen yet for why TB deleting sometimes won't help people with the quota limit warning. Is there a way to make this answer show up for all new questions with Quota topics?

Andy - please let us know if this solves your issue - wait a while after compacting Trash and the folders you deleted from and see if the % changes. If you are using IMAP and Gmail, try the 'just mark as deleted' procedure.

Thanks Matt and Agnes --

I'm not quite sure I understand but let me see if I can explain what I've done this way.

Both of my TB accounts have the server IMAP.xxx.xxx. My practice has been to (a) just keep read emails in my Inbox (b) move them to folders I've named for specific topics or (c) delete them.

When I delete them they are moved to the Trash folder. In looking at the settings I am using the default choice for "When I delete a message": Move to Folder (Trash) is the default choice with "Just mark it as deleted" and "Remove it immediately" as the other two options.

Every so often I delete the items in my Trash folder which I believe wipes them off my hard drive permanently.

Often I am prompted to "compact" folders which I will do on occasion. After I deleted over 5,000 emails from both my Inbox and then Trash I manually compacted both Inboxes (and I believe the other folders for each account) and upon completion was informed that over 2 GB of space had been recovered.

Yet my percentage is still showing as (now) 87%.

If I understood your recent replies it appears that rather than choose the "Move to Trash" option I should instead select the "Just mark is as deleted" button. Is this correct?

And after selecting the "just mark as deleted" button I should manually compact both Inboxes and that will remove or greatly lower the %? Note that the % never appeared and the first time it showed up it was at I think 81%.

If the above is correct I;m not sure I understand why "mark as deleted" would lower the % whereas the actual deleting, emptying Trash and compacting would not have that same effect?

Hopefully the next replies will provide what I need to consider the issue closed and I thank you both for your previous replies and (hopefully) the reply that sets things straight in my mind.

Hi

The quota % you see has nothing to do with the space used on your own computer. It refers to the amount of space that is in use on your email provider's online storage.

Thus if you delete in TB, and compact, it has no immediate effect on the % used at the server - unless you have a way to send back a message to tell the server to delete and clean up the space there.

The setting Matt suggested should send that message - thus specifically prompting the online server to delete, rather than deleting at your end and letting IMAP catch up.

The percentage could increase as a result of deleting, if the online server keeps deleted mail for a while just in case you didn't mean to delete it - perhaps moves it to the online trash and leaves it there fr a month (depending on the webmail settings).

Another way to deal with this is to do the deleting online - log in to webmail, delete the messages there and empty the trash online too. Then let IMAP take care of removing the deleted messages from TB, and compact after they are gone.

Sometimes you need to experiment a bit because each mail service may behave differently in response to your TB delete and compact and expunge settings, and may also have it's own rules which you might be able to set, or may have no control over.

Oh - and the quota % may not show up if it is below a certain level. It's a warning to tell you when you are getting near to needing to take action to make space.

I think I've figured it out in that that % that is shown relates to the capacity remaining on my email (internet provider) server.

I have 2 email accounts. When I log into webmail I checked each of the accounts.

Account A is using 1.12 of 2GB available space with the 1.12 GB used translating to 5,879 emails stored on the server and which equals the same number of emails on my computer in the INBOX of Thunderbird.

Account B is using 1.75 of 2 GB (87%) available space with the 1.75 GB used translating to 4,049 emails stored on the server, again equaling the number of emails in my TB INBOX.

I guess my surprise comes from the fact that much less space is being used to store the 5,879 emails than is being used to store 'only' 4,409 emails.

This is after I had used the 'mark as deleted' option for both accounts in the TB program and then compacted both INBOXes to get to the 5,879 and 4,049 emails. When I looked online I emptied the trash and saw that the number of emails online in webmail was the same as in TB.

Interestingly the online emails go back a bit over 6 months so I am guessing that when my TB crashed early last November, which I believe wiped out all the emails I had stored in TB, they ones prior to, say, November 1 got wiped out on webmail as well. For when I reinstalled TB after the crash I had to re-enter the info for the 2 accounts that crashed (that's another issue I shall be dealing with down the road).

Thanks, again, for your assistance. I don't think I fully understand everything but it appears I kn ow enough to at least understand the answer to my initial question regarding the %.

@Andy, Google actually lump all of your storage use, except some photo storage into your used space and report that as Quota use, as they do not have a separate limit for mail, just an over all limit. I would assume it is quite probable other providers may do the same sort of thing. So it might be documents in an online drive or photos synced from your camera that is really taking the space. It is really something you need to investigate with your provider, what they include in your quota.

@Agnes

Thus if you delete in TB, and compact, it has no immediate effect on the % used at the server - unless you have a way to send back a message to tell the server to delete and clean up the space there.

The compact issues a server expunge command as part of the process, so the information in Thunderbird should be as accurate as the last mail fetch. As I just posted to Andy however, it may not be mail that is the issue filling space. Each mail occupies a relatively small space in a quota measured in gigabytes. Many hundreds may need to be deleted to affect the quotas figure by as much as 1% (20MB being 1% and the average email is 75Kb according to lifewire. That would be 266 emails)

outlook.com limit 15Gb

Yahoo.com limit is 1Tb or 1000Gb

Google's limit is 15Gb, but this inclusive of Drive, mail and photos.. You can check where you space is used in Google here

Quota for GMX is 65GB, according to GMX that is around half a million emails.

Limits for iCloud is 5Gb

The free offers vary a lot as do their other usage limits. Interestingly, ISP limits are usually much lower, despite the customer paying for the service. Just another example of caveat emptor. Folks buy an internet service and concentrate of the download limits to the detriment of the overall offering.

@ Matt - Good to know, thanks!

I find it fraud. My local folders are on my computer. No limit. I keep the trash in the inbox clear. I have to check sent. But 75 percent is outrageous when I have 20 text files in my email. My isp is holding back email and is not sending some due to the reported use. This needs more data than just 75% - where - ISP or my local disk ?!