I would suggest right clicking the account in the folder pane and selecting settings.

In server setting for the account set empty trash on exit and expunge on exit. IMAP accounts never actually delete the mail on the server until the expunge command is sent.

I would also suggest you change your retention settings back to what they were.

Hi Matt, thanks for your suggestions, which I have done, but the result is the same. The mails between yesterday and 2016 are gone, and the disc quota is still at 91%.

Any further ideas how to get back those lost mails and how to empty the quota? Thanks a lot. Axel

Is it an imap gmail account ? If yes, It is possible that you have deleted the labels and not the emails themselves. Logon to webmail account and see if emails are still in 'All Mail' folder. If yes, then move them back into 'Inbox' to apply the label again.

Note: if deleted emails are not put into the subscribed gmail Trash/Bin' folder then they will not get properly deleted, only the label is deleted. This means email disappears from Inbox, but is archived in 'All Mail' folder. It also means the quota will not go down because emails still exist on server. Gmail also auto empty trash periodically.

Thanks for your help (and sorry for late reply). I did find all missing emails in the ALL MAIL folder, so that issue is solved.

I did again check on my tray settings (see attached), but even though my quota still stands unchanged at 91%. Any ideas? Much appreciated!

It sounds like your 'deleted' emails are not going into the gmail Trash folder or not being deleted/emptied from gmail Trash. Hence not being deleted from the 'All Mail' folder.

Test this: In Thunderbird Delete some unwanted emails and confirm they went into the gmail account Trash folder. How many emails do you see in that Trash folder?

Logon to webmail account using a browser. What is the name of the 'Trash' folder in the gmail webmail account? In my case it is called 'Bin', but it may be called 'Trash' etc. How many emails are in the Trash ? Are they the same emails as you see in Thunderbird Trash ?

In Thunderbird

• Right click on gmail imap mail account and select 'Subscribe'.

A list appears. Is 'Trash/Bin' selected ?

• Select/highlight the Trash folder and click on 'Unsubscribe'.
• click on OK

Does the 'Trash' folder disappear from the imap mail account? Is there any 'Trash' folder still in the imap gmail account? If no 'Trash' at all in imap account folders, then

• Right click on gmail imap mail account and select 'Subscribe'.
• click on 'Refresh'
• Select/highlight the 'Trash' folder and click on 'Subscribe'.
• click on OK

Report back on results.

If you can still reproduce this issue, please post a new support request