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How do I tell Thunderbird to request confirmation before deleting a message?

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  • 13 have this problem
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  • Last reply by roberto21

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When I went to delete a message, Thunderbird asked for confirmation, but with a check-box saying "Don't ask again". I accidentally checked this, and now if I delete a message, it just goes ahead without asking for confirmation. I've tried to find a place in Options to reset this setting, but I can't find it. Where should I look for this?

When I went to delete a message, Thunderbird asked for confirmation, but with a check-box saying "Don't ask again". I accidentally checked this, and now if I delete a message, it just goes ahead without asking for confirmation. I've tried to find a place in Options to reset this setting, but I can't find it. Where should I look for this?

All Replies (19)

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Hello,

You can use this addons:

To install it open Thunderbird click on Tools >> Addons >> at the top of the windows there is a gear click on it then click on Install Add-on From File then select the archive that you download from the link above.

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I'm not looking to use an add-on, just the default setting in Thunderbird.

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Sorry, but that feature isn't present in Thunderbird.

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What feature's that?

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If you don't want to install the extension, you can set-up Thunderbird that deleted messages are moved to Trash. So they can always be recovered.

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It used to be that when I went to delete a message, Thunderbird asked for confirmation (with a check-box saying "Don't ask again".)

How do I get it to continue doing that?

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Then you probably already have the extension installed. Please confirm.

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I don't know anything about an extension.

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Please post your Troubleshooting Information. AppMenu Button - Help - Troubleshooting Information

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What is my "Troubleshooting Information"?

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I am assuming that your original question was referring to deleting a message from the trash folder, and not from your inbox? I went to empty my trash and accidentally clicked the "don't ask again" box. I found your post while searching how to reverse what I had done. If my assumption is correct, then here is your answer.

Make sure Thunderbird is not running. Go to your account folder. The folder for the account should have a very random name, such as nt4jund.default". Open the folder. Then find and open prefs.js file with a text editor. Do a search for "emptyTrash" within the file. When you find the following line:

user_pref("mailnews.emptyTrash.dontAskAgain", true);

just change "true" to "false" and save the file.

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>> I am assuming that your original question was referring to deleting a message from the trash folder, and not from your inbox <<

No, I was referring to deleting messages from the inbox, but anyway I found that file 'prefs.js', but it doesn't have the line you said. I tried searching for "emptyTrash", "dontAskAgain", & "mailnews", but it doesn't find any of them.

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I don't remember ever being prompted for confirmation before deleting anything from the inbox. I was only asked when I choose to empty the trash. What version of Thunderbird and what operating system do you use?

    The add-on mentioned earlier in this post will do that for you. It can be found at the link provided by Diego Victor:

https://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/index-en.html#cbd

  I downloaded and installed it, but it did not offer confirmation for emptying trash, which is what I wanted. But it did offer to prompt for confirmation when deleting from the inbox. I never cared about confirmation when deleting from the inbox since even if I accidentally delete something, it just goes to the trash folder and can be moved back to the inbox. The specific add-on is called "CONFIRMBEFOREDELETE"  It's part way down the page in the link provided.
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I'm not interested in installing an "add-on". I just want to put Thunderbird back to the way it was before.

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My Thunderbird is version 24.4.0, and my OS is Windows 8.1

Bob Eccles

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Maybe Thunderbird for Windows is a little different. In Linux, I have never seen a confirmation dialog for deleting from the inbox. That feature doesn't exist in Linux as far as I can tell. Sorry I couldn't help more.

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I use windows XP with IMAP and I do not remember such a feature.

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I have the same problem (thunderbird 24.6.0 win7 y64bit). When I hit shift+del to delete messages without going to the thrash bin I used to get a confirmation dialog ("Are you sure---?"). Now this dialog disappeared (I don't know what I did, maybe I checked "don't ask again" inadvertently, but I don't know for sure) and I can't find a way to restore it. Any suggestion?