Can not seem to delete this e-mail, but would really like to.
Late last year I received an e-mail (with about 3 megs of photos attached) as part of a legal action. It was "blind copied" - not primarily sent to me. I wanted to keep this e-mail until everything was settled, and did so. Now I have been trying to delete said e-mail for several months and TB acts like it is in the process of deleting - but the e-mail does not go away. I have tried every avenue (pulled every string) that I know about, but am making no progress. This is just NOT in my experience / expertise set. What should I check or do, please?
All Replies (9)
Is this email within Thunderbird or in the file system? likeywith your documents.
It is within TB. Just another TB e-mail in my in box.
This might indicate inbox corruption. Is the account IMAP or POP? If pop copy any emails you can not afford to loose to another folder in local folders. Check a couple of mails after you copy them to check they are there and complete.
Right click the folder in the folder pane and select properties and then repair. This simply re-indexes the mail file and might fix the issue if it is a bad index.
If that did not do it, right click again and select compact from the menu. That will completely re write the mail file, or at least whatever part of it is before any mail corruption. Mail received after the corruption will be lost.
Matt, Thanks for being there! The account is POP. I neglected to say that I have been getting the error message that goes something like this: <can not compact inbox. Make sure you have write privileges and have enough disk space>. I have way more than enough disk space. Just wanted to add this bit of information before trying anything you mentioned - in case it makes a big difference. Best, John
It will not make a difference in the long run, but it makes me wonder.
Click the two blue icons in the bottom left of the Thunderbird windows. This will place Thunderbird in offline mode.
Go have coffee for 10 minute or more. Now try the compact.
Matt, Tried that. Offline for 15 minutes. Could not compact and could not delete the problem message. This time I copied the error message, which is: "The folder 'Inbox' could not be compacted because writing to folder failed. Verify that you have enough disk space, and that you have write privileges to the file system, then try again." Sorry that I don't know what this means. Best, John
Ok things are about to get messy.
Go to the help menu and select troubleshooting information. click the button in the troubleshooting information tab to open folder. Close Thunderbird. In the windows explorer windows that opened select the file global-messages-db.sqlite Right click and select properties. Change global-messages-db.sqlite to global-messages-db.sqlite.old and click ok. Open the mail folder. Now open the folder for your mail server (you have not said who provides your mail. Locate the file inbox It will have a file inbox.msf alongside it. Right click the file Select properties Is the file marked read only if it is mark it as not read.
If it is not read only, rename it to inbox_old and delete the inbox.msf file. Restart Thunderbird.
You should have a new folder inbox_old which has your old mail in it. You should also have a new and empty inbox.
I think that is enough for one try.
Matt, First, thank you very much for your kind help. Second, I plan on waiting a day or two before going through the process you described because I am currently fighting a pretty bad cold and seem to be missing a portion of my brain. My hope is to feel "more like myself" in a day or two. Again, Thank You! I will post again after going through the above process. Best regards, John
Matt,
I have had quite an experience since my last post - but the good news is that (with your help) all of my problems have now been resolved. I very much appreciate your kind help. THANK YOU. John