Thunderbird retaining all emails

[SageAdvisor]

How do I get Thunderbird to delete messages from my inbox when I delete them or move them from my inbox online. I've looked everywhere in the TB options and account settings for an option to synchronize my Thunderbird with my online accounts but that setting doesn't seem to exist. But it doesn't make any sense why would anyone want hundreds of emails to stay in their inbox indefinitely OR have to go through all their email twice for each account moving emails to an appropriate folder FOR EVERY EMAIL YOU EVER GET.
Crazy.

[tanstaafl]

Are you using a POP or IMAP account? If you're not sure look at the server type field in the accounts server settings.

Synchronization is managed via the account settings, not the options settings. What exactly are you trying to do? I suspect Thunderbird does what you want, you're just looking in the wrong place.

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Message_aging if the option "leave messages on server -> for at most X days" or "leave messages on server -> until I delete them" in the each POP accounts server settings doesn't do what you need. Moving a message is equivalent to copying it and then deleting the original.

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Deleting_mess ... P_accounts for various options on how to delete messages in a IMAP account. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Message_Filters for how to automate moving messages.

[SageAdvisor]

I actually have both set up in TB. The pop account is the one that is keeping ALL messages I receive in my inbox even when I move them from my inbox or delete them online. The imap account does remove emails from my inbox but doesn't keep any organizational structure from my account online. The pop account doesn't do this either. Is there no way to get either one of these to synchronize with my online account. That is, make an exact copy of the organizational structure of my email accounts including all subfolders.

I have leave messages on server checked but that's for the server side interface and doesn't help me with my problem which is the opposite. The messages are being left in TB. I don't want this. However I would like the messages retained on my local machine IF they would be reflected in their ACTUAL location. A structure to my email storage that makes the thousands of emails I receive manageable and findable.

[tanstaafl]

Subscribe to any hidden folders in the IMAP account by right clicking on the account name in the folder pane, selecting subscribe, refresh the list and then subscribe to whatever folders you want to see. Or go to the IMAP accounts server settings, press advanced, and then UNcheck the checkbox for "show only subscribed folders"

A POP account literally only knows about the inbox folder on the server. All of the other folders it knows about are local (not to be confused with the Local Folders special account). So your sent folder does not have anything to do with the sent folder on the mail server (which webmail and/or a IMAP account could use).

"The pop account is the one that is keeping ALL messages I receive in my inbox even when I move them from my inbox or delete them online."
Its not going to care that you deleted them or moved them online. Its got a download-centric view of the world. The only time it will pay attention to any old mail on the POP server is if it tries to delete it due to "for at most X days" or "until I delete them". Its a IMAP account that lets you use all of the webmail folders (as remote folders).

[SageAdvisor]

Thank you so much for your help. I think I'm all fixed up. I didn't realize how superior the IMAP setup is to the POP setup. I've been using POP for so long I didn't even realize something better was around these days. I had set up the IMAP account and wasn't even using it I was still using the POP account. Now I'm better informed thanks to you.
So is there any reason at all that one would use a POP account these days or should I just delete the POP setup.

Cheers from Canada.

[tanstaafl]

If you have a very slow connection or are getting charged based on the amount of data transferred (for example you're using a cellular connection) POP is better since IMAP accounts refetch messages every time you open them. The main reason most people don't switch is that they've only used POP and are either resistant to change or have problems changing their mental model of how a mail account works. This seems most common with somebody who has viewed few email clients.

ISPs used to only support POP accounts because it helped reduce their disk usage. But the large ISPs seem to have added support for IMAP, perhaps due to the popularity of Gmail IMAP accounts.

[SageAdvisor]

I am noticing TB takes about 15% of my 4770K CPU's cycles this seems very high to me considering TB really doesn't need to do anything. I only use it for some outgoing messages. I'm using v52.0. If this has something to do with the number of emails or folders I have I would prefer to download ONLY the inbox messages. How can I set TB to download only the inbox and ignore all other folders.

Thanks

[tanstaafl]

It is using 0% of the CPU cycles when its idle on my system according to task manager. Process explorer from https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sys ... s/bb896653 lists it as <0.01 %. I have a i7-3770 CPU and 16MB of memory. Do you have a memory leak? That might be a related problem. See https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Te ... e_Problems

If you want "TB to download only the inbox and ignore all other folders." unsubscribe the other folders and make certain synchronization & storage does not have them listed as offline folders. I prefer the configuration in http://kb.mozillazine.org/Minimize_the_ ... _a_profile . That only downloads headers to the hard disk but lets me read mail in any folder.

[SageAdvisor]

How would I know if I have a memory leak? I've got 32GB of memory so that wouldn't be a problem I just don't want 15% of my CPU cycles to be wasted doing absolutely nothing.

I unchecked all folders from the synchronizing & storage settings for each account except the inbox, drafts & sent folders and that seems to have taken the cpu utilization down to 1%. So it seems it did have something to do with the number of emails I have in my accounts some 70,000 or so. Thanks for the suggestion. It sounds like it could be a better solution than what I came up with. I don't see any settings for offline folders in Synchronization & Storage where exactly would I find that?

Well looks like I was mistaken it's back up to 12-15% CPU utilization.
Also even though I've unchecked every folder but the 3 mentioned TB isn't getting rid of them from it's interface. How do I reset TB's database to get rid of all the emails and folders from TB?

I'm actually not sure what it's doing. It takes forever for TB to download and I've got a VERY FAST broadband connection it takes like 10-15 minutes to download each email in the sent folder I was watching it. Now when I select the Sent folder TB says opening folder sent and that message just sits in the status bar and nothing happens. It just says the same thing with nothing happening at all. It seems...

[SageAdvisor]

I left TB running all night but none of the folders I unselected have been removed from the TB interface.

Also I don't know what has changed except me upgrading to v52 but now I keep getting a message that TB can't log into my hotmail account. I haven't added any new accounts I still have the same accounts in there I had before I upgraded. This never happened before.

[tanstaafl]

The outlook/hotmail mail servers are acting up. See http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=3028785 . However, that should not have prevented you from logging in.

tools -> account settings -> account_name -> synchronization & storage-> advanced is used to specify which folders are offline folders, if you have checked "keep messages for this account on this computer". I repeat my suggestion that you read http://kb.mozillazine.org/Minimize_the_ ... _a_profile

If you're able to measure CPU utilization I'd assume you should be able to compare memory size over time. While the memory leak wiki page is focused on memory leaks its also a good troubleshooting page for related problems. I suspect something outside of Thunderbird is causing your problems since you say it takes 10-15 minutes to download a message. Use the wiki.

If you have 70K messages in your inbox I suggest you move most of them to other folders. That will improve performance, especially startup performance.

[SageAdvisor]

The funny thing is I'm not actually being prevented from logging in. When I start TB it logs in fine but later when it is running in the background and I'm not doing anything with it at all a message will come up that it was unable to log into my account but I click on the button to try again and I guess it then logs in fine because the message doesn't come up again for a while so I guess the retry works. But then I get a message again later that it failed to log in again.

I do have "keep messages for this account on this computer" checked but I unchecked every folder in the 3 email accounts I have in TB except the inbox, sent folder and drafts folder. I will read the article you linked to though. Thanks.

I'm getting CPU utilization from task manager. Can't really tell if there's a memory leak from task manager though. I do know there's a massive memory leak in FF though because I use 3 FF windows on the 4 screens attached to this system with 75-100 tabs typically and memory usage for FF will go from around 2GB when I first start it and it will get up to 10-12GB over the course of the day until I have to restart it because the lag time when I do anything in FF gets to be ridiculous. I'm using FF v50.1.0. I haven't noticed the same happening with TB. It seems to use about a half a Gig. I'll keep an eye on it. From watching it a bit it doesn't look to me like it is leaking memory because the memory usage stays very stable. If I watch the FF memory usage it is climbing consistently from the time it starts the whole time its running you can see it using more and more memory.

The 70,000 messages are not in my inbox that's how many messages I have in all accounts and all folders combined. Maybe 20-40 messages in the inboxes of the 3 accounts I have in TB. Startup takes about 3-4 seconds at most.

Thanks again for your help and expertise.