Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

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

"When I delete a message" option does not work

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by sepro

more options

Hi, I am using the latest Thunderbird version (60.5.0, 32-bit) with IMAP settings with my Gmail. In Tools -> Account settings -> Server Settings, I set the option of ""When I delete a message" to "Move it to this folder" and set the folder as "Odpad". Upon deleting a message, it is really moved to the folder but this works only for about 2 days, then the messages simply disappear upon deletion, not appearing in the said folder. The folder "Odpad" is set to retain the most recent 2000 messages but it is far from being that full.

My intention is to remove the messages from other folders (Inbox), retaining them in the Thunderbird but prevent their deletion from Gmail server. Thank you for any help. Lubo

Hi, I am using the latest Thunderbird version (60.5.0, 32-bit) with IMAP settings with my Gmail. In Tools -> Account settings -> Server Settings, I set the option of ""When I delete a message" to "Move it to this folder" and set the folder as "Odpad". Upon deleting a message, it is really moved to the folder but this works only for about 2 days, then the messages simply disappear upon deletion, not appearing in the said folder. The folder "Odpad" is set to retain the most recent 2000 messages but it is far from being that full. My intention is to remove the messages from other folders (Inbox), retaining them in the Thunderbird but prevent their deletion from Gmail server. Thank you for any help. Lubo

All Replies (2)

more options

unfortunately due to the "special" nature of Google IMAP like implementation Thunderbird ignores changes to the archive and trash folders. To do otherwise would break Google.

I think you need to concentrate on the fact all mail is the archive folder and archive your mail not delete it if you want to keep a copy. The short cut key A works to archive mail and remove it from the current folder.

more options

Thank you. Just to make sure: I never deleted my old e-mail from Gmail (unless it contained giant attachments), but used the Del key to make it disappear from my Thunderbird. So in order to make it disappear to a Thunderbird folder (Archive), I need to switch to using "A" instead of Del, am I right?

May be a bit problematic after some 15 years of using Thunderbird but better than the current state - having to go to Gmail page for each

I have tried to use the "All mail" folder locally in Thunderbird but have not found a way how to make it synchronize only the last 1 or so months of the folder, it kept adding all the messages there.