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Thunderbird emails deleted after compacting

seekinghelpTB
seekinghelpTB
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I store some emails in my deleted mail folder that has some significance. A few hours ago, Thunderbird asked me if I wanted to compact my deleted emails. I clicked yes, and I noticed that the emails in my deleted emails folder were almost all gone. There were approximately 30,000 in there before compacting, now there are 500.

I know that compacting is not supposed to delete emails, so I am very confused. I did not delete the emails myself and am not using any antivirus. I tried the Repair Folder option but it did not do anything. I am currently using a Mac. Would appreciate any help.

I store some emails in my deleted mail folder that has some significance. A few hours ago, Thunderbird asked me if I wanted to compact my deleted emails. I clicked yes, and I noticed that the emails in my deleted emails folder were almost all gone. There were approximately 30,000 in there before compacting, now there are 500. I know that compacting is not supposed to delete emails, so I am very confused. I did not delete the emails myself and am not using any antivirus. I tried the Repair Folder option but it did not do anything. I am currently using a Mac. Would appreciate any help.

All Replies (2)

Toad-Hall
Toad-Hall
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Compacting does not delete emails. Compacting removes traces of previously moved or deleted records from the folders they were originally in.

So, if email was in Inbox and you deleted it, the copy of deleted mail should go to Trash. However, in the Inbox, the original copy is still stored, but it now hidden. Compacting would remove the old original copy from the Inbox.

Many servers now auto empty emails from the server Trash folder by default. It varies, some delete emails older than 30 days, others it can be as little as a week. The point is this. It is likely the Trash folder got synchronised when the compacting process occurred and it can only show what is on server. So if server removed them then Thunderbird cannot display them.

What server are you using ? eg: gmail, yahoo, xfinity etc ?

seekinghelpTB
seekinghelpTB Question owner
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Thanks for the reply! That makes a lot of sense. I am currently using Outlook on Thunderbird. Since this is my first time compacting and only my Trash folder was impacted, I'm guessing those emails were automatically deleted by Outlook some time ago and Thunderbird just never removed their traces?