It only tells you that it has been marked as read.

Thanks Gnospen, but doesn't marked as read mean it has been read?

Press F8 to toggle the message Pane off. Select the message. Hold the shift key and press delete.

Not sure what you are so afraid of just having the message marked as read.

What is your definition of read? It hasn'tbeen "opened" in a viewing window.

A folder is nothing more than a large file where mails are stored as is, one after each other including all attachments When you delete a message in a folder it is, with normal settings, only marked as (to be) deleted, but not physically removed. It is also copied byte by byte in to trash-folder.

If you use shift-del to delete then there is no copy. The mail isn't removed from the folder not until you perform a compact. Which will rewrite the folder without any deleted, or moved, mails

Airmail & Gospen, I want to protect my PC from potentially malicious emails and thought the best way to do that was by deleting them unopened from the in box and then trash. Perhaps my understanding of read is not correct - to me it means the content of the message has been opened and could access my software.

Whenever you get an email it is, normall downloaded and saved on your pc in the INBOX -folder (-file) together with everything else in your Inbox.

If you displays its contents there are a few things you need to think about. Don't open any attachments unless your sure. Don't let the spammer know that your address works, That is don't display any remote contents. There is no need to give him a receipt that his mail arrived so don't give automatic receipts

Just use common sense, a firewall and a virusprotector

Thanks both.