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Thunderbird keeps asking me to compact folders with high estimate of savings

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 44 views
  • Last reply by Wayne Mery

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Thunderbird keeps asking me to compact folders, c.f. the attached screenshot. Meanwhile, I also checked the profile files under AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles, the whole folder of the profile files has only 24.2 MB (25,477,204 bytes).

Thunderbird keeps asking me to compact folders, c.f. the attached screenshot. Meanwhile, I also checked the profile files under AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles, the whole folder of the profile files has only 24.2 MB (25,477,204 bytes).
Attached screenshots

Modified by Wayne Mery

Chosen solution

Repeated requests to compact often indicate a corrupted folder. Try rebuilding the folder by copying the existing mail to another folder, then deleting the folder's mbox file and msf file, e.g. Inbox and Inbox.msf, from the profile folder. TB will automatically create new files on restart.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders#Real_fix

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All Replies (4)

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Check settings at Tools>Preferences>General under Disk Space. Changing settings there may address the issue.

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david said

Check settings at Tools>Preferences>General under Disk Space. Changing settings there may address the issue.

You see the folder of this profile only has 24MB. Why would it ask me to compact folder and said it would save 102MB of space?

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Chosen Solution

Repeated requests to compact often indicate a corrupted folder. Try rebuilding the folder by copying the existing mail to another folder, then deleting the folder's mbox file and msf file, e.g. Inbox and Inbox.msf, from the profile folder. TB will automatically create new files on restart.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders#Real_fix

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We are currently working on this issue. If you still have this problem please post a new support request. Also, https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/compacting-folders now explains it MUCH better.