How to clean Thunderbird's cache?

Urano · Post by **Urano** » February 26th, 2007, 11:37 am

¡Hello!

Sometimes when something was wrong with Outolook, I just cleared the cache using the next command line: "Start >> Run >> outlook.exe /cleanfreebusy" And Outlook came out with no problems.

As I'm having some problems with Thunderbird (I guess it's about cache, causes it marks 6 new messages in the inbox but actually it's empty), I want to know if there's a command line like the one above but for Thunderbird.

Thanks in advance,
Urano.

Mc. · Post by **Mc.** » February 26th, 2007, 12:10 pm

MR Tech Local Install has a clear cache toolbar button.
https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/421/

Post by **Daifne** » February 26th, 2007, 2:44 pm

Thunderbird doesn't have a cache.

How recently have you compacted your folders? Compacting is something that needs to be done regularly in any email program. We recommend weekly, but many of us do it daily. When done often enough, it can be an extremely fast process. Not doing so can lead to problems like those you are experiencing. See this about how to and why it's so important: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders

If you haven't been doing that before, and 'compacting' them now (and leaving a long enough time for the process to complete) doesn't fully resolve the problem then do the following on each account:

Close Thunderbird. Find and delete all of the files with the .msf file extension in your profile folder/Mail http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Folder#Thunderbird including your Local Folders, especially if you are using the global inbox. 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 you are using Windows. These are your mail summary files and do not hold any messages themselves. They will be rebuilt the next time you open each folder in Thunderbird. Compact all your folders when you have completed this.

To avoid this happening again, see the tips in these articles:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keep_it_worki ... derbird%29
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Performance_%28Thunderbird%29

Post by **tanstaafl** » February 26th, 2007, 2:55 pm

"Clear Cache" button to clear the disk and memory cache.

I suspect the confusion is due to that extension also being available for Firefox, which does have a disk and memory cache. See if http://kb.mozillazine.org/New_messages_do_not_appear helps. Thunderbird might have tried to download a bad (malformed) message.

Mc. · Post by **Mc.** » February 26th, 2007, 9:25 pm

What about browser.cache in http://kb.mozillazine.org/Category:Pref ... derbird%29 ?

Post by **tanstaafl** » February 27th, 2007, 12:50 am

My impression was that Thunderbird includes a copy of the Gecko rendering engine (whats used in Firefox) in order to display HTML (for example when composing a HTML message) but doesn't actually contain a copy of Firefox, it calls whatever is the system browser when you click on a link in a message. If thats correct, then I assume Thunderbird wouldn't have a "browser cache".

Its confusing because I don't believe all of the settings in the config editor actually effect something. I suspect sometimes they're artifacts of common code. For example, it says browser.cache.disk.capacity is 51200 and that its enabled. But I don't have a disk cache in my profile, not even in Firefox (I configured it to use only a memory cache). http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder also states that only Firefox and SeaMonkey have a disk cache. Perhaps somebody more knowledgeable can comment.

Mc. · Post by **Mc.** » February 27th, 2007, 8:09 am

It's hard to find any information about Thunderbird cache ;-)

Finally found one here https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=235942#c9

Post by **tanstaafl** » February 27th, 2007, 2:45 pm

That seems to be talking about the IMAP memory cache (which other documents say exist) , and claiming that browser.cache.memory.capacity controls it. In http://kb.mozillazine.org/Talk:Browser. ... y.capacity I had asked what was that preference was used for in Thunderbird and was told that its "the amount of memory for caching decoded images and XUL. It's completely different than what the disk cache does.". Perhaps thats the wrong answer, but I noticed that David Bienvenu (a Thunderbird developer) never confirmed that preference controlled the IMAP memory cache. He did say "if you want a persistent cache, you need to configure the folder(s) for offline use". Unfortunately Nick Lott upped browser.cache.memory.capacity and "disabled view attachments inline" at the same time. Viewing attachments inline would use up that cache if it is really used for "caching decoded images and XUL" rather than caching IMAP messages, so its not clear which preference prevented it from fetching the attachment again.

I'll experiment later on to see if I can confirm that setting effects the IMAP memory cache.

The IMAP memory cache is used to cache recently displayed messages in memory so that it doesn't have to fetch them from the IMAP server again. Urano didn't say anything about using a IMAP account. There are lots of caches in Thunderbird, some of them are just a string with ';' delimiters.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » March 15th, 2010, 6:16 pm

Daifne wrote:Thunderbird doesn't have a cache.

ha.. it certainly caches images from the web when added to a signature... cause the signature won't change.. even though the image changes on the server.. and you delete it and re-add it and delete it and re-add it.. and it's still the old image...

Post by **LIMPET235** » March 16th, 2010, 4:09 am

Hi, If you have a problem, please start a new thread. Thanks.
Locking this relic.

How to clean Thunderbird's cache?

How to clean Thunderbird's cache?

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Re: How to clean Thunderbird's cache?