You cannot delete .eml files saved as in another folder outside of thunderbird via Thunderbird. If the emails were saved in a folder eg: Documents Create a folder on the desktop. move emails from the Documents folder into folder created on desktop now you should be able to delete them.

Greetings Toad-Hall, Thanks for the info about not being able to delete if saved outside Thunderbird.

Your suggestion of creating a folder on the desktop and then moving the files to the desktop folder doesn't work as I can't move the files, only copy them. I played around a bit after receiving your help and found that I could move a complete folder to the desktop and then delete individual files from there.

So the method that I found to delete e-mails saved in a folder outside of Thunderbird is as follows: 1) Move the folder containing the e-mails to the desktop. 2) Open the folder on the desktop. 3) Select the files to be deleted. 4) Delete the selected files. 5) Move the folder back to its proper place.

Thanks for the help.

No need to move the folder to the desktop, surely? Just navigate to it in your file manager (aka Windows Explorer or local equivalent.) Or is Windows telling you it cannot be deleted? Right-click? Delete button on the keyboard?

As you have found, once you have saved a message outside Thunderbird, it's independent of Thunderbird and becomes a job for the system file manager.

Greetings Zenos, My thought entirely. So my first attempts were to use Windows Explorer to delete the files, but it isn't even given as an option. I could "copy" the files anywhere with Windows Explorer, but couldn't "move" them with Windows Explorer. I couldn't delete the folder either.

Why I can move the complete folder, but not individual files I haven't the foggiest, but as I have found a way to do what I want I'm not worrying about that detail and have put it down as "A Microsoft Thing".

Um, yes, Windows seems to have new mode where the user isn't allowed to delete his own files. It's cropped up here in the past when users save outside Thunderbird.

I try to avoid windows as much as I can. Whilst I have to use Windows at work, I've never had this particular thing happen to me.

Is any of this in the following link relevant?

http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/152664-Windows-permissions-Why-won-t-it-let-me-do-what-I-want

Greetings Zenos,

Sorry about the delay in responding, I'm in Europe.

Thanks for that link, very interesting.

However the subject there is slightly different to my case. The discussion there centers around "why do I need permission from myself to delete this file" whereas in my case there is not a delete option offered by Windows Explorer. I have tried running Windows Explorer as administrator, but get the same results, no option to delete a .eml file.

I have found a way, described in my second posting, to delete the .eml files so although it is a bit more complicated than I would ideally wish I have decided to mark it as my chosen solution.