How do I stop attachments being deleted?

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Thunderbird
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CKurtz
Posts: 11
Joined: January 21st, 2005, 8:46 pm

How do I stop attachments being deleted?

Post by CKurtz »

I have TB configured to place attachments in an 'attachment' subdirectory. Is there a way to tell TB to not delete the attachment when the associated email is deleted? Eudora has an option you can set that tells it not to delete the attachment when you delete the email, and I've found that most useful as I typically need to keep the attachment, but not the email.

Note that I have the "empty trash on exit" option set, which is when the attachments get deleted.

Thanks,
Chris Kurtz
Jim D
Posts: 1611
Joined: December 29th, 2004, 10:56 am

Post by Jim D »

TB doesn't actually download the attachment until you tell it to (unlike Eudora). To have the attachments saved, you need to explicitly download them.

There's a Thunderbird extension (can't remember the name right now) which allows you to click on a set of messages and download all their attachments at once. That might help you. Look on extensionsmirror.nl for it.

-Jim
CKurtz
Posts: 11
Joined: January 21st, 2005, 8:46 pm

Post by CKurtz »

Thanks Jim. I'm not having any problems with downloading an attachment - as you notied, I just click on it and the attachment is extracted from the email and created in my attachment directory. However, I then delete the email as I don't need it any more - I just need the attachment. Unfortunately, TB also deletes the attachment from the attachment directory rather than just deleting the email. I'd like to be able to delete the email but not delete the attachment from my attachment directory - just as I do in Eudora today.

Thanks again,
Chris
Jim D
Posts: 1611
Joined: December 29th, 2004, 10:56 am

Post by Jim D »

Hmm... I don't think so.

Thunderbird should never delete an attachment file. It's never done so for me, and I'd be very surprised if it happened. If you can reproduce the situation, please tell me exactly the steps that you performed, and the result you saw.

-Jim
CKurtz
Posts: 11
Joined: January 21st, 2005, 8:46 pm

Post by CKurtz »

Jim,

Ok, here is the sequence of events:
I send myself an email with an attachment (using Eudora) in this specific case a wmv file. Close Eudora. Open TB. Have it set to check for mail on start, have it set to extract attachments to C:\temp, and have it set to empty trash on exit.

Receive the email with the attachment. Click on the attachment. The attachment, a file called "goingtoworkonmonday.wmv" is created in C:\temp. I view the movie (pretty funny one), close the movie viewer. Just for fun, I click on the attachment again. TB creates a SECOND attachment in C:\temp, called "goingtoworkonmonday-1.wmv". I view the movie. Close the movie viewer. Still have both files in C:\temp.

Then I delete the email. Look in Trash - there it is. Look in C:\Temp - both files still there. Close TB. Bang - both wmv files disappear. I understand why TB creates the second wmv file (a bit of a design goof there that I can live with) but how do I get it to stop deleting the attachments on exit?

Thanks!
Chris
Jim D
Posts: 1611
Joined: December 29th, 2004, 10:56 am

Post by Jim D »

Interesting.

I still have a hard time believing that TB is doing it. I explicitly tried it myself, with WMV files. I got the same behavior of multiple copies being created, but they were *not* deleted when I closed TB. I'm on a Mac, so things may not carry over directly.

Maybe try a few additional things. Explicitly empty the trash before closing TB; see if that's when the files disappear, or is it when you close TB. Try leaving Windows Media Player open, with the video paused, to see if that changes things.

Otherwise, I don't know what to suggest. This is obviously not intended behavior.

-Jim
CKurtz
Posts: 11
Joined: January 21st, 2005, 8:46 pm

Post by CKurtz »

Well, it is actually worse than I thought: even when I don't delete the email, as soon as I close TB the attachments go away. Windows has the ability for a program to create a "temporary file" that windows automatically deletes when the creating applications closes. That is the behaviour I'm seeing here. I really don't know what to try next. When I receive an attachment in Eudora it stays after I exit the program. But when I receive an attachment in TB, it disappears when I close the program.

Ah...I may have an idea. Let me try something... ah ha! When I click on the attachment, TB asks me if I want to save it to disk or view it. I select view. So even though TB places the attachment in the attachment directory, it is really only creating a "temporary" file for viewing purposes - NOT for saving. When I click on "save to disk", the file remains even after I've deleted the email and closed TB.

So...the answer to my question is "select 'save to disk', not 'view'" to keep the file after the email has been deleted and/or TB is closed. That makes too much sense...

I believe my confusion here is caused by the fact that my attachment directory and my windows "temp" directory are the same directory. So TB was creating the file in my temp directory so it could be viewed - and then deleting it, as it should - and since it is the same as my attachment directory, it looked to me like it was 'saving to disk' when it wasn't.

As you say, Interesting...
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