I have been using Thunderbird for quite a while now, since Microsoft oddly phased out Outlook Express, which I'd been using. I thought I had correctly configured Thunderbird not to delete any messages at all based on age, but I find that exactly that process occurs with my IMAP account through a personal webserver, www.grnbushes.com. The cutoff seems to be that messages older than six months get automatically deleted. I have accounts with Gmail and Hotmail, with which this isn't a problem. While I understand a lot of people prefer to keep their inboxes clear, I prefer to keep in it messages I want to be able to refer to in the future, often years into the future, so I don't want Thunderbird deleting ANYTHING I don't actively delete manually. I've attached a screen shot of my settings for this account, and hope you're able to find a solution for me. Thanks, Neil Farrell