Are you talking about POP mail accounts?

when you did this: I have removed Trash and Trash.msf from my profile for the affected accounts to rebuild them but it didn't solve the problem. Did you exit Thunderbird first - this is necessary - and then delete those two files?

Have you compacted the Inbox folder? If no:

• Move all good and wanted emails from the Inbox into other suitable folders for organising and storage.
• delete any emails you do not want.
• Right click on Inbox and select 'Compact'

• Then empty the 'Junk' folder and compact it.
• Also compact the 'Drafts' folder.

Thanks Toad-Hall

These are all IMAP accounts and of course Thunderbird was not running when I deleted the trash folders.

I regularly compact all accounts and only keep mails which need action in the inbox, everything else goes into local folders.

Lets run through all checks and gain a bit of info on what is going on.

Webmail: Please check and provide info on what is on server. Access/logon to the yahoo webmail account using a browser. Q: Is there only one 'Trash' folder on server? There have been cases where a folder created in Thunderbird or transfered from a merging account has got onto server and it ends up causing confusion. Q: Do you see the same emails in the server Trash folder as are shown in the Thunderbird yahoo imap Trash folder ? Q: what is the date of the oldest email in Trash ? Q: How many emails are in the server TRash folder ?

In Thunderbird, make sure you are using the server Trash folder. Check you have subscribed to see it.

• right click on imap mail account name in folder Pane and select 'Subscribe'
• click on 'Refresh'
• select the server Trash folder
• click on 'Subscribe'
• click on OK

Then make sure the imap account is using that folder in the Account Settings.

• right click on imap mail account name in folder Pane and select 'Settings'
• Select 'Server Settings
• select 'move it to this folder' and choose the Trash on imap account.
• Under 'Message storage'
• Select checkboxes: 'Clean up (Expunge) Inbox on exit'
• and if required 'Empty Trash on exit'
• click on OK

Q:Are you currently using the 'Unified' view ? To ensure this is not causing part of the issue

• Select: 'View' > 'Folders' > 'All'

Q: In Folder Pane: Does the 'Trash' folder have a trash bin icon or a folder icon? Q: what is the date of the oldest email in imap Trash ? Q: How many emails are in the imap TRash folder ? Q: Do you only have emails in Trash folder or are there any deleted folders as well?

The method you used by Exiting TB and deleteing Trash and Trash.msf from the imap account in profile folders is usually the correct process as it removes any potentially corrupt folder and creates a new one once restarted which synchronises with server.

I believe Yahoo automatically deletes the messages in your Trash folder at occasional intervals, and it is not possible to control the time of deletion. If you do not manually empty the Trash and just leave it alone, does Trash get emptied on server (webmail) and subsequently get deleted in Thunderbird imap TRash folder? Obviously, you will need to test this over a decent amount of time. Q: Is this not occuring for you? Trash 7 days and Spam 30 days. https://help.yahoo.com/kb/new-mail-for-desktop/sln3518.html

Please provide info and feedback to queries.

Before answering the questions let me just clarify, these accounts are with Yahoo! Japan not Yahoo!. Although Yahoo! Japan started as a joint venture between Yahoo and a local company, it no longer has anything to do with Yahoo so options are different and the codebase may be very different.

Toad-Hall said

Lets run through all checks and gain a bit of info on what is going on. Webmail: Please check and provide info on what is on server. Access/logon to the yahoo webmail account using a browser. Q: Is there only one 'Trash' folder on server?

Yes.

Q: Do you see the same emails in the server Trash folder as are shown in the Thunderbird yahoo imap Trash folder ?

Yes.

Q: what is the date of the oldest email in Trash ?

Obviously varies by account but the oldest across the board is a only a few days old because I'm deleting them from the trash folder one by one or occasionally through the web interface or the mail app on my phone.

Q: How many emails are in the server TRash folder ?

Again, varies by account from none to 93 in the most active account.

In Thunderbird, make sure you are using the server Trash folder. Check you have subscribed to see it.

• right click on imap mail account name in folder Pane and select 'Subscribe'
• click on 'Refresh'
• select the server Trash folder
• click on 'Subscribe'
• click on OK

I've done all this and there is no change in behaviour.

Then make sure the imap account is using that folder in the Account Settings.

• right click on imap mail account name in folder Pane and select 'Settings'
• Select 'Server Settings
• select 'move it to this folder' and choose the Trash on imap account.
• Under 'Message storage'
• Select checkboxes: 'Clean up (Expunge) Inbox on exit'
• and if required 'Empty Trash on exit'
• click on OK

These are all basic setting which are correct. I don't use 'Clean up (Expunge) Inbox on exit' nor 'Empty Trash on exit' deliberately as I prefer to do both compacting and emptying trash at a time I choose just in case I have deleted something by mistake and need to recover it. Just to see what would happen I set the 'Empty Trash on exit' and restarted Thunderbird. The trash was not empty when I restarted it.

Q:Are you currently using the 'Unified' view ?

No

Q: In Folder Pane: Does the 'Trash' folder have a trash bin icon or a folder icon?

Yes

Q: what is the date of the oldest email in imap Trash ?

Same as on the server

Q: How many emails are in the imap TRash folder ?

Same as on the server

Q: Do you only have emails in Trash folder or are there any deleted folders as well?

Emails only

The method you used by Exiting TB and deleteing Trash and Trash.msf from the imap account in profile folders is usually the correct process as it removes any potentially corrupt folder and creates a new one once restarted which synchronises with server.

I don't believe this has anything to do with corruption. Since it started to affect only Yahoo Japan accounts and multiple accounts at the same time, I think it is more likely that the delete instruction is not being accepted by the server.

I believe Yahoo automatically deletes the messages in your Trash folder at occasional intervals, and it is not possible to control the time of deletion. If you do not manually empty the Trash and just leave it alone, does Trash get emptied on server (webmail) and subsequently get deleted in Thunderbird imap TRash folder? Obviously, you will need to test this over a decent amount of time. Q: Is this not occuring for you? Trash 7 days and Spam 30 days.

As I mentioned, this is Yahoo Japan not Yahoo so the server side settings are different. I believe both spam and trash are emptied after one month. I do not know if this is happening for deleted messages as I don't want that many messages in the trash so I remove them long before it gets to that point. For spam it is working and so is the Thunderbird 'empty junk' menu option.

re :I'm using Thunderbird 60.9.0 (64 bit) on Mac OS X El Capitan (10.11.6 (15G22010)).

Regarding version of Thunderbird. Current version is 68.1.0 - do not perform an update.

Exit Thunderbird if it is running.

If you have not created a recent backup of profile, then create a backup now and store in external hardrive or usb of suitable. Mac OS X Profile folders are located here:

• ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<Profile name>/

The tilde character (~) refers to the current user's Home folder, so ~/Library is the /Macintosh HD/Users/<username>/Library folder.

Copy the 'Thunderbird' folder as a backup.

Uninstall Thunderbird to clear the program. Mac OS X

• /Applications/Thunderbird.app

Then download and install fresh version from here, choosing prefered language and download for MAC OS. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/all/

Now start Thunderbird.

The problem is not resolved with version 68.1.0.

I also created a fresh profile and set up one of the Yahoo Japan accounts in it using default settings as a test. The problem remains.

Google has shown someone using a MAC who experience similar issue some time ago, but they were using 'Mail' not 'Thunderbird'.

• https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7859547

It seems odd that there are few mentions of this. Mind you if they were on a yahoo japan forum then I would not understand the language and so not locate anything.

I'm trying to identify what is working and what is not working before mentioning this as bug in bugzilla as they like to have all the facts.

Obviously selecting single message in Trash and using Delete works.

Right click on Trash folder and select 'Empty Deleted' is not working.

Over the next few days, can you test all the following various options and report back on what works and what does not work.

1: In version 68.1.0 there is another way to invoke empty trash, can you test this. Select any folder in the yahoo japan account. Menu icon > 'Empty Deleted'

Did Trash get deleted? If no: What happened? Did it disappear and come back very quickly in same session or disappear but comes back upon restarting Thunderbird ?

2: Select 'Trash' Select one email in Trash message list Use 'Cmd + A' to select all Messages will show as 'x number of conversations' and will offer 'Archive' and 'Delete' buttons. Click on 'Delete' button

Did all highlighted messages get deleted? If no: What happened? Did it disappear and come back very quickly in same session or disappear but comes back upon restarting Thunderbird ?

3. I know you do not as a rule use this option, but for the sake of a test could you choose a yahoo account where you have checked all the messages you want deleted, so you can perform this test.

• Right click on yahoo mail account and select 'Settings'
• Select 'Server Settings'
• Under 'Message storage'
• select: 'Clean up (Expunge) Inbox on exit'
• Select 'Empty Deleted Folder on Exit'
• click on OK

Then Exit Thunderbird. Allow a little while for background processes to complete

Does the auto empty trash on exit work ?

Please report back on your test results.

I did search in Japanese before posting here. There was nothing similar. The Japanese Thunderbird forum (still on mozillazine.jp) is not very active. In other forums there is not much talk of Thunderbird and when searching for Thunderbird and Mac there is almost nothing recent. The fact that nobody is talking about the problem may just be because the number of users is small.

1: In version 68.1.0 there is another way to invoke empty trash, can you test this. Select any folder in the yahoo japan account. Menu icon > 'Empty Deleted'

Sorry but I am not sure if I understand this. What does "menu icon" refer to? I don't see anything different in the GUI or menu.

2: Select 'Trash' Select one email in Trash message list Use 'Cmd + A' to select all Messages will show as 'x number of conversations' and will offer 'Archive' and 'Delete' buttons. Click on 'Delete' button Did all highlighted messages get deleted?

Yes. This deletes all the messages. I can select any number of messages from one to all using any method to select them and successfully delete them all. It is not quite as quick but an acceptable workaround.

3. I know you do not as a rule use this option, but for the sake of a test could you choose a yahoo account where you have checked all the messages you want deleted, so you can perform this test.

• Right click on yahoo mail account and select 'Settings'
• Select 'Server Settings'
• Under 'Message storage'
• select: 'Clean up (Expunge) Inbox on exit'
• Select 'Empty Deleted Folder on Exit'
• click on OK

Then Exit Thunderbird. Allow a little while for background processes to complete Does the auto empty trash on exit work ?

No, this does not empty the trash.

One other thing I did not mention. After using the "empty the trash" option, even though it does not work, the message "Emptied the Deleted Folder" appears in the status bar.

I have downgraded again because there is a bug with the display of tags in 68.1.0 but if any more information is needed by a developer I'm happy to upgrade again for testing.

re :What does "menu icon" refer to?

The icon that has 3 horizontal lines is a fairly commonly used icon to represent a hidden menu that is revealed when you click on that icon.

In Thunderbird, it is on the 'Mail Toolbar' and by default located on the far right. In the example in image below, I have moved it to the far left because it just seems more logical because I read left to right.

Thank you ... embarrassingly simple now. It's quite discrete in Thunderbird and I don't think I've heard it call an icon until now.

Anyway, I re-installed 68.1.0 to test and the result is the same as with "Empty Trash" in the right click and File menus. i.e. the messages disappear for a second and then come back.

Please perform a Test: Make a note of which yahoo japan account has several emails in the 'trash'. As you will need to recreate it later on.

Create a new profile using Profile Manager. In Thunderbird

• Help > Troubleshooting Information
• Under 'Application Basics' - at the end of section, click on 'about:profiles'

• Click on 'Create a new Profile' button
• click on 'Next'
• Enter Profile name eg: Yahoo

then you will know, if this fix works, which profie fixed yahoo problem.

• Click on 'Finish'

A new profile will appear in the list. Later, if this works, then you can set as default, but for now...

• Click on 'Launch Profile in new browser'

It will open profile in new window.

• Exit the original Thunderbird window.

In new profile: add one of the yahoo japan email addresses and set up imap mail account. Make sure you have all the correct settings to keep messages on your computer for all folders. Allow time for all the folders to synchronise. Test the right click 'empty deleted' option.

Report back on results.

I had already done this (mentioned in the short post where I said the problem is not resolved with version 68.1.0 on 22nd September) but I did it again using 68.1.1. The result is the same; the 'empty deleted' option only clears the mails for a fraction of a second before they reappear.