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Deleted IMAP messages re-downloading - how to sync back to server?

Alexander Kriegisch
Alexander Kriegisch
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Yesterday I removed hundreds of duplicate messages from 3 of my IMAP accounts with a lot of effort, partly facilitated by the "Remove Duplicate Messages" add-in. But still I went through all the messages in order to make sure that the right ones were removed. Anyway, now I just reopened Thunderbird, and now it is re-downloading all those messages. Why? I would have expected the deleted messaages to also have been synced back to the IMAP server. Normally it will do that if I delete single messages or mark them as read. The status will be the samer on the server. Did I somehow not wait long enough before closing TB? But it was idle and not ovbiously doing anything. Is there a way to enforce folder sync for many folders in an IMAP account? I want to be sure that this does not end up like "Groundhog Day" every time I clean up my duplicate messages. (The duplicated exist for historical reasons when I was always BCC-ing myself in times of POP3, so I can also see my sent messages, no matter which device or client I used to write them.)

Yesterday I removed hundreds of duplicate messages from 3 of my IMAP accounts with a lot of effort, partly facilitated by the "Remove Duplicate Messages" add-in. But still I went through all the messages in order to make sure that the right ones were removed. Anyway, now I just reopened Thunderbird, and now it is re-downloading all those messages. Why? I would have expected the deleted messaages to also have been synced back to the IMAP server. Normally it will do that if I delete single messages or mark them as read. The status will be the samer on the server. Did I somehow not wait long enough before closing TB? But it was idle and not ovbiously doing anything. Is there a way to enforce folder sync for many folders in an IMAP account? I want to be sure that this does not end up like "Groundhog Day" every time I clean up my duplicate messages. (The duplicated exist for historical reasons when I was always BCC-ing myself in times of POP3, so I can also see my sent messages, no matter which device or client I used to write them.)

Chosen solution

Open Account Settings > Server Settings > When i delete a message > Move it to this folder > choose the IMAP Trash/bin/Deleted folder of the account. I don't know if the Remove Duplicate Messages add-on respects this setting or if it has its own. Whichever the case, have it move those duplicates to the IMAP Trash folder. This action should be mirrored on the server immediately as long as Thunderbird is online. Switching to the Trash folder in Thunderbird should confirm that the messages have indeed been moved from their original folder.

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All Replies (2)

Stans
Stans
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Chosen Solution

Open Account Settings > Server Settings > When i delete a message > Move it to this folder > choose the IMAP Trash/bin/Deleted folder of the account. I don't know if the Remove Duplicate Messages add-on respects this setting or if it has its own. Whichever the case, have it move those duplicates to the IMAP Trash folder. This action should be mirrored on the server immediately as long as Thunderbird is online. Switching to the Trash folder in Thunderbird should confirm that the messages have indeed been moved from their original folder.

Alexander Kriegisch
Alexander Kriegisch Question owner
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Actually, the problem was a bit more complex than this. There also was a problem with the dupe checker itself, or actually it was a problem with my e-mail provider which slightly altered message IDs between sent folder and inbox. The message ID contains a timestamp, and the sent message specifies the local time while the received copy shows the exact same time as GMT. Very exotic, indeed. So some messages were simply not caught by the dupe checker in the first place. The others were marked as deleted, but I had to compact my folders in order for them to be expunged.

See https://kb.mozillazine.org/Deleting_messages_in_IMAP_accounts for more details.