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I have a total of three deleted messages, but Thunderbird thinks it can save me 500MB by compacting my folders! What gives?

hcmcf
hcmcf
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I've only been using Thunderbird for a couple of months, so I'm not 100% used to it so far. Over the last few days I've been getting a message saying that it can save me 500MB of space by compacting my folders. The thing is, I work on multiple projects, so I primarily keep a handful of general emails in my Inbox, and the rest are in subfolders. (For the record, I have 73 messages in my inbox at the moment.)

After reading about compaction in a few support threads, I understand that compacting should only remove messages that have been deleted, or are in Junk. (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/compacting-folders, https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1014995, https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1197283, https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1197606)

Except, I've got a grand total of three messages in my deleted folder. I am a pathological email hoarder. And like I say, I've only been using Tbird for two months! (Also, I do not have a Junk folder set up)

None of the emails in my deleted folder have attachments, or embedding images, documents, nothing that could make up 500MB+.

Ultimately, there's just absolutely no way I can imagine that compacting my folders could save a whole half a gig after two months of emails - without deleting the important emails in my subfolders.

Please don't suggest that compacting will not affect emails in my inbox unless you can provide an explanation for the 500MB sitch.

Thanks,

I've only been using Thunderbird for a couple of months, so I'm not 100% used to it so far. Over the last few days I've been getting a message saying that it can save me 500MB of space by compacting my folders. The thing is, I work on multiple projects, so I primarily keep a handful of general emails in my Inbox, and the rest are in subfolders. (For the record, I have 73 messages in my inbox at the moment.) After reading about compaction in a few support threads, I understand that compacting should only remove messages that have been deleted, or are in Junk. (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/compacting-folders, https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1014995, https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1197283, https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1197606) Except, I've got a grand total of three messages in my deleted folder. I am a pathological email hoarder. And like I say, I've only been using Tbird for two months! (Also, I do not have a Junk folder set up) None of the emails in my deleted folder have attachments, or embedding images, documents, nothing that could make up 500MB+. Ultimately, there's just absolutely no way I can imagine that compacting my folders could save a whole half a gig after two months of emails - without deleting the important emails in my subfolders. Please don't suggest that compacting will not affect emails in my inbox unless you can provide an explanation for the 500MB sitch. Thanks,

All Replies (5)

user01229325
user01229325
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When you click delete Thunderbird marks the message for deletion and hides it. Compacting removes the message and frees up the disk space. It has nothing to do with any message still visible in your trash/deleted folder. If you do not compact folders on a regular basis you will eventually pay the price with corrupted folders and data loss. You have a link to the article on what compacting does. That explains it all right there.

hcmcf
hcmcf Question owner
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Thanks Airmail. But I have only ever deleted three messages, which cannot possibly amount to 500MB of disk space.

I am asking how this could be possible.

user01229325
user01229325
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Make a backup of your profile and compact your folders. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data If you use the Compact command on the File menu it compacts all folders. If you right click a folder and select Compact it only does that folder.

hcmcf
hcmcf Question owner
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Thanks Airmail, that was a good suggestion, it gave me the peace of mind to press that Compact button without worrying about losing emails.

End result, I have successfully compacted folders without losing anything,. (Also can confirm that backup profile size is ~1GB, newly compacted profile size is ~500MB.)

After a bit more reading, it seems that moving messages into folders must mark the original location as something to 'delete/compact', and create a new entry for the message in the new location. Since I'm moving almost every email to a different folder, this explains why the compaction indicated it would save so much space.

In summary – moving and deleting messages are similar processes, and adds to size of the profile file. Not just deletion of messages as I thought.

user01229325
user01229325
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Well there you go. Now keep up both compacting folders and making periodic backups and you will be fine. If I do lots of activity in a folder I just go ahead and right click/compact that folder right then.