Help needed with large amount of email

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tomdkat
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Joined: October 14th, 2003, 7:53 am

Help needed with large amount of email

Post by tomdkat »

So, I'm helping a friend deal with Thunderbird performance issues on her new PC. It's relatively new (Intel Core i5-8400 @ 2.80Ghz, 8GB of RAM, 1TB HDD) and Thunderbird 60.9.0 takes between 15-30 seconds to open. I created a new profile, which had nothing in it, and when I start Thunderbird with that profile, it opens almost immediately. So, I think there's an issue with the volume of email she has in her primary profile.

Here's some background information:

*) Number of email accounts: 7
*) Types of email accounts: POP: 4, IMAP: 3 (two are Gmail accounts)
*) Size of Thunderbird profile folder: 18.4GB
*) 200 message filters exist, across all email accounts
*) One IMAP email account has about 100 folders, maybe just over 100

I've compacted folders a few times and am not sure what else to try to improve the time it takes Thunderbird to open. I've seen several threads here, with suggestions on improving performance. Some of the IMAP changes I'm not sure the system owner would be open to, since I don't know what her "work flow" is, when it comes to managing email, in that one IMAP account.

Is 18GB simply enough email to cause Thunderbird to open slowly?

Thanks in advance!

Peace...
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DanRaisch
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Re: Help needed with large amount of email

Post by DanRaisch »

Have you suggested disabling Global Search and Indexing? That's one possible point of performance problems.
reft
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Joined: March 11th, 2003, 1:07 pm

Re: Help needed with large amount of email

Post by reft »

Mine is 22.5GB and it takes a while to open. I do, however, have a large number of subfolders etc. I suspect the issue is simply the amount of data to reference.
tomdkat
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Joined: October 14th, 2003, 7:53 am

Re: Help needed with large amount of email

Post by tomdkat »

DanRaisch wrote:Have you suggested disabling Global Search and Indexing? That's one possible point of performance problems.
Thanks for the tip. I'll see if she uses the search functions at all and how she uses them. If she doesn't, I'll disable those functions.

Peace...
tomdkat
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Joined: October 14th, 2003, 7:53 am

Re: Help needed with large amount of email

Post by tomdkat »

reft wrote:Mine is 22.5GB and it takes a while to open. I do, however, have a large number of subfolders etc. I suspect the issue is simply the amount of data to reference.
Wow, and I thought *I* had a lot of email. :) lol My Thunderbird profile (on Ubuntu Linux) is 9.6GB and Thunderbird 60.8.0 starts in about 10-15 seconds, probably closer to 10.

Anyway, Mr 22.5GB, is the Thunderbird profile stored on a SSD or a "spinning" HDD?

One thing I'm considering doing, to boost Thunderbird performance, is move her Windows installation to a SSD.

Thanks!

Peace...
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tanstaafl
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Re: Help needed with large amount of email

Post by tanstaafl »

Having a really large profile doesn't necessarily impact performance once global search/indexing completes its initial search index. Having lots of subfolders is a good thing as unless you open them (either explicitly or due to a search) their contents are normally ignored (have no impact on performance).

Having lots of messages in the inbox is an issue as on startup every inbox is opened automatically and the folder listing for it loaded. Think about moving most of the messages in the inbox to other folders. I'd also suggest archiving many of the messages in your sent folder. Thunderbird by default keeps up to 30 *.msf files open for 5 minutes (and their contents in memory), unless they are "special" folders, which it never closes. An inbox, sent, junk, drafts and templates folder are special folders. I'm not sure if a trash folder is considered one.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Performance_-_Thunderbird
tomdkat
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Joined: October 14th, 2003, 7:53 am

Re: Help needed with large amount of email

Post by tomdkat »

tanstaafl wrote:Having lots of messages in the inbox is an issue as on startup every inbox is opened automatically and the folder listing for it loaded. Think about moving most of the messages in the inbox to other folders. I'd also suggest archiving many of the messages in your sent folder. Thunderbird by default keeps up to 30 *.msf files open for 5 minutes (and their contents in memory), unless they are "special" folders, which it never closes. An inbox, sent, junk, drafts and templates folder are special folders. I'm not sure if a trash folder is considered one.
What is considered a "lot of messages"? I think her inbox has 1200 messages, maybe closer to 1500. I'll check the "Sent" folder to see what it contains as well. I never thought of archiving "Sent" mail. Sounds like a good idea.

Thanks!

Peace...
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tanstaafl
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Re: Help needed with large amount of email

Post by tanstaafl »

I normally suggest you try to keep the inbox under a thousand messages. But I wouldn't consider 1200 or 1500 a "lot".
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DanRaisch
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Re: Help needed with large amount of email

Post by DanRaisch »

What is considered a "lot of messages"? I think her inbox has 1200 messages, maybe closer to 1500.
That depends on whether the account is set up as POP or IMAP. A POP account with 1200 messages in the Inbox would be seriously problematic, the same account set up as IMAP much less so because the data resides on the server.
tomdkat
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Joined: October 14th, 2003, 7:53 am

Re: Help needed with large amount of email

Post by tomdkat »

Thanks for the feedback! I haven't had a chance to look at my friend's machine again, but I'll definitely see about getting the number of messages,in her inboxes, reduced to under 1000.

Thanks again!

Peace...
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