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Cannot delete emails and posted solution does not help

  • 10 replies
  • 4 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by lmrhkshlmo

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If I delete an email it comes right back again. I have tried the posted solution at http://mzl.la/1ApHx1w and it did not change anything. Can somebody help me?

If I delete an email it comes right back again. I have tried the posted solution at http://mzl.la/1ApHx1w and it did not change anything. Can somebody help me?

Chosen solution

Who is your email provider?

If I delete an email it comes right back again.

Can you explain the 'comes right back' part in more detail?

You should create a full backup of your Thunderbird profile folder. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb#w_backing-up-a-profile

Then try to rebuild the index file of the troubled folder (Inbox in your case). Right-click the folder - Properties - Repair Folder

Note, if there's some sort of mail file corruption, rebuilding the index would repair that. But it may also mean that messages will disappear as a result of fixing the corruption.

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What's your account type - POP or IMAP? Are you trying to delete a message in Inbox or another folder?

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IMAP, deleting from Inbox to Trash folder - which I had to select when creating the account.

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Chosen Solution

Who is your email provider?

If I delete an email it comes right back again.

Can you explain the 'comes right back' part in more detail?

You should create a full backup of your Thunderbird profile folder. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb#w_backing-up-a-profile

Then try to rebuild the index file of the troubled folder (Inbox in your case). Right-click the folder - Properties - Repair Folder

Note, if there's some sort of mail file corruption, rebuilding the index would repair that. But it may also mean that messages will disappear as a result of fixing the corruption.

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My mail provider is domain.com

Comes back again: I select a message and hit DEL, it is removed from the list, but then appears again a second later, marked as read.

This is a fresh profile in Thunderbird recently installed in Windows 10, so I'm not sure that corruption would be an issue - I did try removing the trash files as stated though. As for backing up - is that necessary on a fresh install? All the mail is on the server after all, right?

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What happens when you login to your account via webmail, and delete the message on the server?

What is your anti-virus software?

As for backing up - is that necessary on a fresh install? All the mail is on the server after all, right?

Even though with IMAP all mail is stored on the server, that isn't equivalent to a backup. If your anti-virus software is acting up, and decides to quarantine your Inbox or otherwise corrupt Thunderbird mail files, your messages are gone also on the server in the worst case. Up to you.

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If I log in via webmail, it works. Sends the message straight to the Trash folder.

The antivirus on my Windows box is Avast. I've tried it on my Linux box and I'm getting the same problem.

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It's not Avast antivirus causing this problem, as that's only installed on my Windows machine, and I'm getting the same behavior (not able to delete) on my Linux box.

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I read the link about backing up. It's not really an issue for me as my Linux machine sends the contents of my drive - including the profile - to my NAS with an rsync script on boot.

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I have solved the problem and it wasn't Thunderbird, but my provider - domain.com. They were incredibly unhelpful in tracking down the issue, simply linking me over and over to basic set up instructions for entering the server settings. In the end I had to fix it myself by deleting the mail account on the server and remaking it - after that Thunderbird just started working as normal. Obviously there was something screwy with the mailbox folder and remaking it on the server fixed it.