What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

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PainterArt
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Joined: February 20th, 2006, 4:34 pm

What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by PainterArt »

What does asterisk mean in next to the Inbox folder unread message total. Like Inbox (*12)
This has recently started in two POP e-mails address next to the Inbox folder. It also coincides to some e-mails getting the "This message may contain a virus or there is not enough disk space. Skip this message?"
[Yes] [No]
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JJ Johnson
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by JJ Johnson »

I have exactly the same question. Thunderbird today updated to 38.0.1 and I now see these asterisks and can't make much sense of them.
PainterArt
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by PainterArt »

The asterisk in the main folder means that there are new messages in a subfolder of that main folder.

In my case the Inbox contains subfolders I never made and seem to have "randomly" duplicated e-mail messages into these subfolders. I remember getting messages that names were to long for download. Now I see folder with long names that this message was referring to. I suspect these subfolders and duplicate messages are the reason I am getting error messages on downloading some e-mail
"This message may contain a virus or there is not enough disk space. Skip this message?
[Yes] [No]"
and
"Verify that you have enough disk space, and that you have write privileges to the file system, then try again."
The only solution that searches came up with in trying to solve the error message was to compact or your e-mail files was in an encrypted folders. Compacting did nothing, but that kind of makes sense with these somehow created subfolders. There is no encrypted folders though folders with to long of names for Thunderbird to handle may look to be encrypted. I will delete the subfolders. Clean up the mess and write back about whether it solves my error problems.
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WaltS48
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by WaltS48 »

The asterisk means there are new messages whether there are sub folders or not.

They have been there for a few versions now.

The asterisks are also used in Thunderbird 31.7.0 and 24.0.

I didn't test any other older versions.
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tanstaafl
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by tanstaafl »

On my PC when I get a new message in the inbox it only displays the asterick if the inbox has a child folder, and the folder listing is not expanded. So I see it on my Gmail IMAP account (where the inbox has a media child folder), but not my Comcast IMAP account (no child folders).

Image

edit: Every message in those folders/child folders was already read except for the new message in the inbox. So there shouldn't be any confusion between new and unread.
PainterArt
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by PainterArt »

WLS wrote:The asterisk means there are new messages whether there are sub folders or not.
They have been there for a few versions now.
The asterisks are also used in Thunderbird 31.7.0 and 24.0.


In Thunderbird when I get a new message in either POP or IMAP e-mail address the e-mail address, Inbox and number of unread messages turn blue. There is a yellow star like that shows up on the e-mail address and Inbox <b>icon</b>, which might be what you are talking about.
The asterisk we are talking about shows up next to the number of unread in the parentheses next to the Inbox.

WSM just posted on another thread "The asterisk is intentional, to indicate that the number includes the count of messages from OTHER folders. If subfolders do not have messages of that type, then the number shown is not preceded by an asterisk, and is the exact number of message in that folder - nothing more, nothing less :)"

It also just showed up with Thunderbird 38
wsmwk
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by wsmwk »

The asterisk means the number shown is a sum of the folder and all it's subfolders. For example, in tanstaafl's screen shot the number shown is the number of UNREAD messages. Some or perhaps none of which might be NEW messages. N.B. There is a difference between NEW and UNREAD, and so the number shown is not an outright indicator of new messages.

The only true indicators of a folder having NEW messages is the starburst in the folder icon and the folder having a special color (if it is enabled). So in the case of a collapsed folder, if there is a starburst and there are no NEW messages in the folder, then one or more of the subfolders has NEW messages.

Any deviation from this description is a bug. (or a blunder on my part)
onix
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by onix »

Based on two different threads and the number of views, the complainers are not alone... This asterisk thing is broken. It doesn't matter if there are unread messages in a subfolder or a parent folder, either way an asterisk is shown. This provides no more information than one already had in previous versions.
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by wsmwk »

onix wrote:Based on two different threads and the number of views, the complainers are not alone... This asterisk thing is broken. It doesn't matter if there are unread messages in a subfolder or a parent folder, either way an asterisk is shown. This provides no more information than one already had in previous versions.

onix,
Thunderbird started in safe mode also failed??
Last edited by wsmwk on June 22nd, 2015, 1:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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tanstaafl
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by tanstaafl »

Yes. I just verified that with my Gmail IMAP account.
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by wsmwk »

tanstaafl wrote:Yes. I just verified that with my Gmail IMAP account.

What happens if you set mail.folderpane.sumSubfolders false and restart?
And then what happens if you set mail.folderpane.sumSubfolders true and restart?
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tanstaafl
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by tanstaafl »

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939462 mentions that "the accumulation of subfolder counts in to a collapsed parent is optional now. You can turn it off via the mail.folderpane.sumSubfolders pref"

1. Set mail.folderpane.sumSubfolders false and restarted. The asterick for the Gmail account disappeared.
2. Set it back to true and restarted. The asterick for the Gmail account re-appeared.
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by wsmwk »

tanstaafl wrote:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939462 mentions that "the accumulation of subfolder counts in to a collapsed parent is optional now. You can turn it off via the mail.folderpane.sumSubfolders pref"

1. Set mail.folderpane.sumSubfolders false and restarted. The asterick for the Gmail account disappeared.
2. Set it back to true and restarted. The asterick for the Gmail account re-appeared.


Right. So the question is, does the asterisk still appear when it should not? I.E. Does it even appear when folder is not collapsed
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tanstaafl
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by tanstaafl »

Expanding the gmail inbox (with mail.folderpane.sumSubfolders true) removes the asterick. Collapsing the folder tree makes it re-appear.
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JJ Johnson
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Re: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12)

Post by JJ Johnson »

I tried the above changes (POP servers, not IMAP) and got the same behavior. With mail.folderpane.sumSubfolders set to false, I see the old behavior. The total shown does not include unread messages in subfolders and there is no asterisk displayed under any circumstances.

Change it back to true and I get the same behavior described previously in this thread. An asterisk is displayed when there are unread messages and the folder has subfolders, whether or not there are unread messages in any of the subfolders.
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