Advanced Attributes - Safe?

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Mark Smalley
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Advanced Attributes - Safe?

Post by Mark Smalley »

I've created a new Profile. I can't understand why the file is so huge (4.8 G).

I've deleted unwanted email, and hundreds of email with attachments.

Right clicking the profile - the properties appear.

At the bottom of the window is advanced attributes - click "advanced" and you can choose the settings that you want for this folder.

Under Archive and Index attributes there are two boxes:

Folder is ready for archiving
For fast searching, allow Indexing Service to index this folder

Safe to check both?

Further down - Compress or Encrypt attributes

Safe to: compress contents to save disk space?

Thanks.
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Daifne
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Post by Daifne »

Have you compacted your folders? The files you have deleted are not fully gone until you do. See this: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders
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Post by Guest »

Yes, I've compacted the folders. But its seems like the compacting takes forever on certain folders (like an hour) so I stop it and the compacting moves onto the next folder.

I've also tried compacting each folder separately.
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Daifne
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Post by Daifne »

You are going to need to let those certain folder compact. Let them go overnight if you have to. With a profile folder of 4.8GB, you have a lot of old deletes to get rid of. When you do it on a regular basis, it will go much faster.

How is the size looking now?
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tanstaafl
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Post by tanstaafl »

I suggest you don't set any of those advanced attributes. They have nothing to do with mail.

The compacting of your inbox folder might not do much good if the profile got corrupted. I suggest you copy the messages to another folder, verify you can read them, exit thunderbird, delete the "inbox." and "inbox.msf" files for that account in your profile, and then run thunderbird again. It should create a blank new inbox folder. Then move the saved messages back to that folder.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder
http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/
Mark Smalley
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Advanced Attributes

Post by Mark Smalley »

Daifne wrote:You are going to need to let those certain folder compact. Let them go overnight if you have to. With a profile folder of 4.8GB, you have a lot of old deletes to get rid of. When you do it on a regular basis, it will go much faster.

How is the size looking now?


I let the Inbox Folder compact for 8 hours over night. It was locked up this morning so I don;t know if completely successfully. However, I restarted the compacting this morning and it's still working.

I thought when we transferred some of the folders into a New Profile the problem would be eliminated. But apparently we transferred the problem.

Please advise. Is there another way arond this problem?
GordMcFee
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Post by GordMcFee »

What is the size of your profile folder now?
Gord McFee
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Post by Guest »

The folder is still compacting - that's 8 hours last night and two this morning - ridiculious.

The profile was and still is 4.8 G.
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Daifne
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Post by Daifne »

Time for the hard core actions. Try these, one at a time. If the first one works, stop. In the future, remember to compact regularly.

Find and delete the inbox.msf file in your profile folder/Mail (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Folder#Thunderbird) for each account. You must have "View hidden files and folders on" http://spywarewarrior.com/viewtopic.php?t=272 and you need to set "hide extensions for known file types" off (just below View Hidden). If this doesn't work do the following on each account:

1. Move any mail in your Inboxes - that you want to retain - to subfolders of Local Folders.

2. Close down Thunderbird

3. Navigate to your Thunderbird Profile Folder on each system and DELETE all 'Inbox' and 'Inbox.msf' files. They will be rebuilt when you relaunch Thunderbird.
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Post by Guest »

Before I start finding and deleting files again - should I backup the Inbox file - or take any other precautions?

It seems like we did this before and it was a bear bringing all of the email that I needed (inbox, sent, hold, etc.) into the New Profile.

Just asking to be super-sure :)

Thanks.
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Daifne
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Post by Daifne »

Deleting the .msf file shouldn't cause any problems with the actual inbox file, but to be on the safe side, sure. If you go to the second, all messages in the inbox will be lost. That's why I say to move everything you want to retain. If you can't access your inbox right now, yes, back it up. But, we will want to get the messages back in using the MboxImport extension rather than just copying the file back. We don't want to just replicate the same issues back.

mboximport: http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=2074
To install a Thunderbird extension do the following:
Right click the download link and choose "Save Link As...". Then open Thunderbird, in Thunderbird go to Tools->Extensions->Install. Find the just downloaded .xpi file and select it. The installation will now begin.
GordMcFee
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Post by GordMcFee »

I would always back up before doing something as drastic as trashing an Inbox.
Gord McFee
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Daifne
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Post by Daifne »

Gord, both in my instructions and in my later answer I told him to do that.
GordMcFee
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Post by GordMcFee »

I was answering "Guest", who asked:

"Before I start finding and deleting files again - should I backup the Inbox file - or take any other precautions?
It seems like we did this before and it was a bear bringing all of the email that I needed (inbox, sent, hold, etc.) into the New Profile.
Just asking to be super-sure."
Gord McFee
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Daifne
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Post by Daifne »

Oops, sorry. I thought you were thinking that I hadn't mentioned it, but now noticed that we posted at the same time. My fault. :oops:
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