Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Wannan tattunawa ta zama daɗaɗɗiya. Yi sabuwar tambaya idan ka na bukatar taimako.

Automatically compact the Trash folder for IMAP account

  • 5 amsoshi
  • 1 yana da wannan matsala
  • 12 views
  • Amsa ta ƙarshe daga christ1

more options

I am the system admin for about 100 mail users. Our users are lazy, they don't clean up their mail until they get quota warnings. After cleaning up, they empty their Trash folder, but the only way to compact the Trash folder and actually recover the space is to manually compact through the menu or to exit Thunderbird completely.

The problem is that I can not find any Thunderbird settings that will hasten the compacting of the Trash folder. None of the settings regarding the threshold for expunge or compact seem to apply to the Trash folder. I've tried them all. The settings seem to work fine on Inbox (i.e., message is expunged from Inbox after moving to Trash). But nothing will automatically expunge Trash.

The documentation regarding the "mail.imap.expunge..." config options or any of the options available in the GUI don't say anything about being folder specific.

Is this by design? A bug? Am I missing something.

I am the system admin for about 100 mail users. Our users are lazy, they don't clean up their mail until they get quota warnings. After cleaning up, they empty their Trash folder, but the only way to compact the Trash folder and actually recover the space is to manually compact through the menu or to exit Thunderbird completely. The problem is that I can not find any Thunderbird settings that will hasten the compacting of the Trash folder. None of the settings regarding the threshold for expunge or compact seem to apply to the Trash folder. I've tried them all. The settings seem to work fine on Inbox (i.e., message is expunged from Inbox after moving to Trash). But nothing will automatically expunge Trash. The documentation regarding the "mail.imap.expunge..." config options or any of the options available in the GUI don't say anything about being folder specific. Is this by design? A bug? Am I missing something.

All Replies (5)

more options

It is my understanding that there is no need to compact Trash. It's done automatically upon emptying Trash.

more options

Except that completely emptying Trash is not the only option. Sometimes messages are deleted selectively.

more options

If you're talking about compacting in general, turn on automatic compacting. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders#Automatically

more options

christ1 said

If you're talking about compacting in general, turn on automatic compacting. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders#Automatically

Nope. That seems to have no effect when deleting larger messages from within the Trash folder.

more options

After cleaning up, they empty their Trash folder

That's what you wrote in your OP.

completely emptying Trash is not the only option. Sometimes messages are deleted selectively.

May be, but why would anyone want to do that, and why would that be a problem?