Where did you install Firefox from? Help Mozilla uncover 3rd party websites that offer problematic Firefox installation by taking part in our campaign. There will be swag, and you'll be featured in our blog if you manage to report at least 10 valid reports!

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

Deleted email in Thunderbird

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by lwminct

more options

How can I be sure that I can access an email that I deleted in the last couple months if needed? I get this message whenever I open TB "The messages you have deleted can be purged from disk. This operation will save about 1.6 GB [it was 395 MB until I started deleting a lot of email] of disk space. Select the option below to let Thunderbird do this automatically without asking you." I am reluctant to allow TB to purge deleted email automatically. Under my Inbox folder I recently created an Archive folder an other folders where I put email that I know I want to save. However, sometimes I delete an email and then realize that I should have archived it. When I look in the Deleted folder under the [Gmail] folder I see older and newer email but I don’t always see the email I am looking for. The Important folder also under the [Gmail] folder keeps some email. I don’t see a clear pattern to which emails are saved in these two folders. I have TB 78.6.0 32 bit with updates installed automatically.Here are some settings that may be relevant. Account Settings - Server Setings > Server Name is imap.gmail.com: Junk mail is moved to the Spam folder, Enable adaptive junk mail filter logging is not checked: Disk Space > Always keep starred messages is checked. Options - General > Disk Space, cache currently using 762 MB of disk space, Override automatic cache management is not checked, Compact all folders when it will save over 200 MB in total is checked. Thank you for any help you can offer.

How can I be sure that I can access an email that I deleted in the last couple months if needed? I get this message whenever I open TB "The messages you have deleted can be purged from disk. This operation will save about 1.6 GB [it was 395 MB until I started deleting a lot of email] of disk space. Select the option below to let Thunderbird do this automatically without asking you." I am reluctant to allow TB to purge deleted email automatically. Under my Inbox folder I recently created an Archive folder an other folders where I put email that I know I want to save. However, sometimes I delete an email and then realize that I should have archived it. When I look in the Deleted folder under the [Gmail] folder I see older and newer email but I don’t always see the email I am looking for. The Important folder also under the [Gmail] folder keeps some email. I don’t see a clear pattern to which emails are saved in these two folders. I have TB 78.6.0 32 bit with updates installed automatically.Here are some settings that may be relevant. Account Settings - Server Setings > Server Name is imap.gmail.com: Junk mail is moved to the Spam folder, Enable adaptive junk mail filter logging is not checked: Disk Space > Always keep starred messages is checked. Options - General > Disk Space, cache currently using 762 MB of disk space, Override automatic cache management is not checked, Compact all folders when it will save over 200 MB in total is checked. Thank you for any help you can offer.

All Replies (2)

more options

The message has nothing at all to do with deleting mail or archiving mail and everything to do with Thunderbird recovering the space in the mail file the mail you already deleted use up. It has lots of other useful purposed, but intimately it is removing the trace from the inbox of the deleted message that would normally now be in the deleted or trash folders.

more options

Thank you for responding. I just want to make sure I understand. So if I allow TB to automatically have deleted email be purged from disk I will still be able to find deleted email in the Deleted folder? Do you know why when I look in the Deleted folder under the [Gmail] folder I see older and newer email but I don’t always see the email I am looking for? Thank you