Is this normal Thunderbird behavior or did I miss something?
Two users on my PCLOS kde4 partition. Both have extremely bloated .thunderbird files. Almost 8 gigs between them. Within Thunderbird, files have been deleted on a daily basis using the provided Trash folders. And yes the Trash folders are emptied regularly.
After some sampling of Thunderbird characteristics, here's what I observe:
*Deleting a file in any folder sends the visible message to the Trash folder.
*However, the size of the original folder doesn't change after the deletion.
*In fact, even moving a file from one folder to another behaves the same way. Although no longer visible in the original folder that folders size remains the same and the receiving folders size increases.
*Thus if you change your mind about where to store a message it will be stored in every folder sent. From a bloating perspective, that one message will decrease available disk space by multiples of the number of folders it once occupied.
*Using the empty Trash upon exit option doesn't change these characteristics.
*Clicking on a folder file within Dolphin File Manager will open Kmail, displaying a deleted file along with this message, “The file contains multiple messages. Only the first message is shown.” Strange that Kmail can still read and display Thunderbird's deleted messages.
*The only folder file that actually can be physically emptied within Thunderbird, is the Trash folder. But that doesn't regain the disk space from the other folders.
OK, so I discovered how the bloat happened. I tried various settings within Thunderbird and none seemed to change this bloating behavior.
To regain the 8 gigs, I decided to delete the bloated folder-files located within .thunderbird. It worked, 8 gigs became less than 100 megs. Before deletion, to preserve important messages, I moved them into an empty folder within Thunderbird. When Thunderbird was closed then reopened, Inbox, for example was automatically recreated. The Sent folder was automatically recreated once a message was actually sent.
Thunderbird works the same after this tinkering. It still is adding any new email in a new cumulative bloating way. At least I've temporarily regained 8 gigs.
Thinking it was peculiar to kde4, I checked my pclos-kde3.5 installation. It behaved the same way. I tried reinstalling Thunderbird from Synaptic but again, no changes.
I've searched these forums without finding this topic. If it's there and I've missed it, my apologies. Is this unique to my installs? Are others finding similar behavior? Is there a way within Thunderbird to regain disk space from deleted messages? Thanks for any constructive advise.
