How to remove some unwanted accounts in the profile?

[Mark246]

Several years ago, when I was learning to use Tbird, I created accounts... trying to get Tbird to work how I wanted it to work.
In that TEST phase, I created accounts quickly, with random names, by just hitting a few keyboard keys, like DF and C and DFHG.
I created some IMAP accounts, but I now use Only POP accounts.
I recently needed to rebuild the profile, from Backups, and from recovered files.
It all seems to work now, but there are folders in the profile that are Not wanted.
I Think (but I'm not positive) that the Only folder that should be in the PROFILE\MAIL folder is "Local Folders".
I made a backup of the profile, then Deleted everything except that "Local Folders" folder.
Restarted Tbird... then exited... and they're all back there, again.

How can I get rid of all of that crap that is not wanted / needed?

Thanks.
Mark246

[DanRaisch]

See this article for information on posting a screen shot to the forums -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Posting_a_scr ... _the_forum

[Mark246]

Does this image work?...

OR...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tmdqatp5n7a13 ... 2.jpg?dl=0

[Mark246]

Might be relevant...
Windows 7, SP1, 64-bit, and a current version of Thunderbird.
Thanks.
Mark246

[DanRaisch]

That worked but what's more important is what Thunderbird thinks it's working with. If you use menu path Tools->Account Settings, are all of those "accounts" listed in the left hand pane of the dialogue?

[Mark246]

Well,... I don't have a simple answer to that, Dan.
NOTHING shows in that left pane that refers to C or CGFB or DC or FE, etc...
but there are several different email addresses for each of the wanted email accounts.
There's Mark@ThisWebsite and Joe@ThisWebsite and Sara@ThisWebsite, etc...
and each of those email addresses has a separate section in that left pane.

Where is the information for those C or CGFB or DC or FE things stored?
I'd be happy to try manually editing the file.
Of Course... I'll First make a backup.

Thanks for your time.

p.s. I don't know why the Picture is not appearing in the above posts.
I Did read the entire thing that you recommended on posting a screen shot,
but I could not see anything that mentioned code listed as "Forum Thumbnail". Ah, well.

[Mark246]

The left pane of Account Settings...

or
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xa0s9sz6cwu5i ... 1.jpg?dl=0

?

[tanstaafl]

Your POP accounts might be configured to use a global inbox. That hides the account in the folder pane in the main window, and uses folders in "Local Folders" instead. While you can re-configure the POP accounts not to use a global inbox you don't need to do that to delete the POP accounts. I suspect what you need to do is browse the accounts in tools -> account settings and find the ones you want to keep (by comparing their email addresses). Then delete all of the other POP accounts after you made a backup of the profile.

Deleting the other POP accounts directories in the profile doesn't delete the accounts. They are still defined in prefs.js (it has all of the settings). Use tools -> account settings -> actions -> remove account to delete the selected account. It's pretty quick and much safer than manually editing the prefs.js file with a text editor.

I don't know what happened to the quick and dirty names you entered since the screen image seems to show accounts named after the email address.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Global_Inbox

[Mark246]

Perhaps I mis-communicated...
All of those different email addresses appear in the left pane of the Tools > Account Settings window.
None of them appear in the main Tbird window.
You're correct... all POP accounts, and all accounts use only the Global Local Folders Inbox.

To clean up this profile, I'd like to get rid of the folders called C and CGFB and DC.com and FE and FGH and GDYJ
as well as all of the IMAP folders. I don't use any of those folders.
And none of them are visible in the Tools > Account Settings window. How to delete them?


https://www.dropbox.com/s/wu5m65pnw7d8j ... 1.jpg?dl=0


https://www.dropbox.com/s/tmdqatp5n7a13 ... 2.jpg?dl=0

Thanks.

[tanstaafl]

I have no idea how you created the C, CGFB etc. folders since they don't appear to be within an accounts "local directory" (which specifies where an account stores its mail folders and message filters. It is set at the bottom of the accounts server settings pane by a Browse button) and they don't appear to be associated with an account. For example, if you had a POP gmail account your local directory would be something like ..\Mail\pop.gmail.com and you would have directories for each mail folder either in that directory or in child directories.

To get rid of the IMAP folders (since you already deleted all of the IMAP accounts) delete the contents of the ..\ImapMail directory. DO NOT delete the ImapMail directory itself, you only want to delete anything in it. If you created IMAP accounts elsewhere, you'll have to delete the directories individually.

To get rid of the the C, CGFB etc. folders don't use Thunderbird to do that. Just delete them normally using windows explorer.

Alternatively create a new profile and move just what you want to keep to it per the second paragraph in http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_ ... hunderbird

[Mark246]

Wow. I did something that has stumped the Master?
I don't know if that makes me extremely sharp, or extremely stupid.
Regardless,... that "local directory" IS exactly where those folders are.
True, that's not the default Tbird folder location...
When creating the account, I told Tbird where to put the folder / local directory,
because I was trying to recover from a different screw-up.
You might recall, Tanstaafl, that you helped me in Recovering deleted files just a few days ago, in another thread...
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=3031284

In that Local Directory, I cannot find any ImapMail folder.

And regarding the C, CGFB, etc... folders,... OK... I just made a Backup of the profile,
then deleted everything in that folder, except the Local Folders, and Explorer2 shows...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fbc9n340oy48d ... 1.jpg?dl=0
I started Tbird, for that profile. Did nothing, just immediately exited Tbird. Explorer2 now shows...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ahqy6p99pj5m0 ... 1.jpg?dl=0
To paraphrase Jack Nicholson,... "They're Back...". Exited Tbird.
Started Tbird again, and all of my desired email accounts appear to be there and working correctly.

Regarding that 2nd paragraph that you mentioned, it says I would need to re-create all 22 accounts again.
I'd really rather Not go thru that hassle. What other ideas have ya' got?

THANKS very much for your time.

[tanstaafl]

I don't see why Thunderbird is going to re-create directories upon startup unless they are either the local directory for an account, or are special case folders (either the inbox or defined in something like the copies & folders settings). Looking at the last screen shot you appear to have IMAP account's local directories in the POP accounts directory tree (..\Mail) and a whole bunch of local directories that aren't named after mail servers. Not just obviously bogus ones like CGFB but ones like mail.b. Its not clear why you hid some of the full names for the directories, usually its only usernames, passwords and email addresses that you need to keep private. I can't tell how many legitimate accounts you have. I wouldn't be surprised if it was only 6 based on the domain names.

It looks like you have about 22 accounts, a "Local Folders" account, and a directory due to view -> folders -> all (the smart mailboxes directory). You said you don't want to re-create 22 accounts again, but previously said you wanted to get rid of a lot of them. How many POP accounts do you want to keep?

Have you tried searching for gcfb etc. using the config editor at tools -> options -> advanced -> general -> config editor to see whats associated with it? For example, if it was a server name it would show up in a setting such as mail.server.server13.realhostname (where the number 13 will be replaced by whatever server id is actually used). You could then look up in mail.server.server13.directory to see the local directory for that account. You could look at mail.server.server13.userName to see the accounts username/email address, to check whether its an account you want to keep.

The account id normally matches the server id. So you could edit mail.accountmanager.accounts (which has the name of all of the account ids) to eliminate that account id string, if for some reason you couldn't delete that account normally. For example, I have mail.accountmanager.accounts set to account1,account5,account23,account25,account7,account4,account6,account9,account8,account24,account2,account13,account26

One of the recent minor updates added the ability to delete an accounts mail folders by checking the "remove message data" checkbox when you delete the account. It appeared to remove the entire local directory for a POP account when I tried it.

If you wanted to do "Alternatively create a new profile and move just what you want to keep to it per the second paragraph in http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_ ... hunderbird" you could copy the existing prefs.js over the one in the new profile IF you straightened up the account situation and had only POP accounts under ..\Mail. That would avoid having to re-create the accounts. However, if you only have a few accounts that you want to keep its easier to actually add them normally then to try to fix your prefs.js file.

You don't have to use the new account wizard to add an account. You could abort it and add them manually via the ADD MAIL ACCOUNT MANUALLY add-on at https://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/index-en.html#addmanual instead, if its easier.

[Mark246]

I'm trying to digest all that you've said, there, Tanstaafl.
Maybe this view is easier to understand?...
The reason that I blank out the website names is because my home address is shown on most of those websites.
mail.ABC.com is another crap / unwanted entry.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lvvc8cfqoal87 ... 2.jpg?dl=0
Note that there are Two entries for MyWebsiteA and Three entries for MyWebsiteC. I don't know why that would be.
And, why does MyWebsiteE not have "mail." in front of it?

Referring to email accounts, there are 22 different email addresses.
Several of the email addresses are at the same website, like Mark@MyWebsiteC.biz and Sales@MyWebsiteC.biz, etc...

Maybe this is just further confusion?... maybe not...
I own about 30 domains, and some of them are not actually hosted anywhere.
The domain registrar automatically forwards emails to Mark@MyWebsiteC.biz.
So, one of the 22 email addresses is Mark@AnotherWebsite.com...
Tbird RECEIVES those emails at Mark@MyWebsiteC.biz and
Tbird SENDS emails from that Mark@AnotherWebsite.com address thru the MyWebsiteC servers.
The outgoing emails look like they are coming from Mark@AnotherWebsite.com.

With Explorer2, I looked in that "smart mailboxes-1" folder... it's empty.

I want to keep all 22 of the email POP accounts. I use them all.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wu5m65pnw7d8j ... 1.jpg?dl=0
Well, except for that iw2stc entry. I'll delete that one.

I searched for CGFB as you suggested... It says...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/h528hfothj4dx ... 1.jpg?dl=0
That Mark11 profile is an old one, no longer used or wanted.
More superfluous info... when I make major changes to a profile, I save it under a new name.
That's how I had Mark11, then Mark12, up to Mark17, etc... When I started Mark18, I went to 3 digits... Mark181 is the current profile.
In that way, I have old backups, available to revert to when necessary.

I searched, and found "accountmanager" in the prefs.js file. Notepad++ found 3 lines with that text...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y2j5e24p74sfy ... 1.jpg?dl=0
That first line mentions account1, then 3, 4, 5, 6, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, 26, 19, 20, and lastly 21.
I have no idea what that means.

Thanks very much for your continued assistance, Tanstaafl.

Mark246