thunderbird is eating up all my disk space. My INBOX file in the imap folder is 89GB. Thunderbird is downloading the same emails over and over
About 5 weeks ago thunderbird started downloading emails constantly. For instance it says on the bottom: downloading message 179 of 2908 and such. It seems to me that everytime I open thunderbird it downloads all my messages from my domain again and again and again. Thsi problem started approx. 5 weeks ago. At that time I had approx. 100 GB of disk space/. Now I have ess than 10 GB left and theINBOX file in the Imap folder (in the Thunderbird library) has swollen to 89 GB !!!! I don't know what to do. I'm running out of disk space. How do I get Thunderbird to stop downloading all old emails from my server over and over again, and how do I deflate this enormous INBOX file? I really hope you can help me, as I'm seriously running out of disk space.
My computer is a Mac Book Pro and runs OS 10.6.8. I've used Thunderbird for years on this computer and never had a problem, and now all of sudden this weird issue has come up. I have no idea why. I made no changes in the Thunderbird settings. Is it possible that one of my domain hosts / servers made a change that might cause this? I'm downloading from 2 different servers, as I have 2 domains - both of them are my personal domains (not gmail, yahoo, hotmail and such). One is hosted by Site 5 in the US and the other by Strato in Germany.
All Replies (4)
Which of your accounts is the troubled one, i.e. the one causing the rapid growth of the Inbox size? What is the account type of that account - POP or IMAP? Are you deleting duplicate messages? If so, are you compacting folders in the process, or let Thunderbird automatically compact folders? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders
The following is copied from https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1112200 ...
Hi Christ,
thank you for your answer
I have 2 domains, one dowloads via IMAP and the other via POP. I'm not sure whether Thunderbird is doing these endless downloads from both, but I know for sure that it's doing it with the account that downloads through IMAP. That folder is 89 GB and grows every time I open thunderbird. It's downloading thousands of messages all the time, and the next time I open it, it starts all over again. They do not show as duplicate messages in my inbox, though, not even as unread messages. So the synching seems to be working to some extent - only that thunderbird seems to download all messages from my server over and over again, and accummulate them all in my INBOX file inside the Imap folder. I called my server and they told me the messages on my account are 4GB right now - so at this point each message has to be stored in the inbox folder 22 times. As I said they are not showing 22 times in thunderbird though - only once. It's just that it somehow downlaods them into the file (which is located in the Thunderbird library) over and over again. I am pretty much out of disk space now. This problem has eaten up all of my free disks space. this problem started about 5 weeks ago, and I noticed it when thunderbird kept stalling and the computer seemed always busy with something - well it was constantly downloading thousands of emails - the same ones over and over.
I'm not sure how to set thunderbird up to automatically compact folders. First I need to stop this downloading problem though - then I can try and find a way to deflate that 89 GB file back to the 4 GB that it should be.
To me it seems like there might be some sort of corrupted file going on - basically it seems like Thunderbird simply doesn't remember that it has already downloaded all of these emails and does it aver again every time I open it. What can i do about this? Where is the corrupted file? Can I replace it with a new one somehow?
I'd be grateful for any suggestions.
Sonja Hinrichsen www.sonja-hinrichsen.com
On 2/28/16 12:38 AM, Mozilla Support Forum wrote: > Mozilla Support > thunderbird is eating up all my disk space. My INBOX file in the imap folder is 89GB. Thunderbird is downloading the same emails over and over > christ1 Feb 27, 2016, 4:38:55 PM > > Which of your accounts is the troubled one, i.e. the one causing the rapid growth of the Inbox size? What is the account type of that account - POP or IMAP? Are you deleting duplicate messages? If so, are you compacting folders in the process, or let Thunderbird automatically compact folders? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders
similar issue recounted in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1123540
Sonja,
DId you solve your problem? Please let us know.