We're calling on all EU-based Mozillians with iOS or iPadOS devices to help us monitor Apple’s new browser choice screens. Join the effort to hold Big Tech to account!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Emails that I have deleted and are not in Trash still appear in full text in global Search. How do I delete them for good?

  • 1 reply
  • 4 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by jemkg

more options

I deleted these emails some time ago. The Trash folder is empty. I wish to delete them permanently but have not been able to locate them in a form that will enable me to do so. They do not show up by using Edit>Find>Search messages. I have made a manual search of all folders but they are not there. I have tested the delete function on a "dummy" email, which also deletes from Trash with no problem but still shows up in global Search, with no location indicated. It appears that there remains a permanent record of every email as a "phantom", even after Trash has successfully cleared. I have looked in the Profiles folder but cannot locate a file where these may be stored, but they must be in a file somewhere on my computer. I would like to know where it is so I can once and for all nuke these undead emails.

I deleted these emails some time ago. The Trash folder is empty. I wish to delete them permanently but have not been able to locate them in a form that will enable me to do so. They do not show up by using Edit>Find>Search messages. I have made a manual search of all folders but they are not there. I have tested the delete function on a "dummy" email, which also deletes from Trash with no problem but still shows up in global Search, with no location indicated. It appears that there remains a permanent record of every email as a "phantom", even after Trash has successfully cleared. I have looked in the Profiles folder but cannot locate a file where these may be stored, but they must be in a file somewhere on my computer. I would like to know where it is so I can once and for all nuke these undead emails.

Chosen solution

FIXED by the questioner. I found a file called "global-messages-db-sqlite" in the folder "(User)>AppData>Roaming>Thunderbird>Profiles>jt*****.default". It showed the current date, but I suspect that it updated the orginal search that I ran to locate the files I wanted to delete. (The test email that had seemed to confirm the problem in fact did delete properly; I had deleted it from my Inbox but forgotten to delete it from my "Sent" folder).

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (1)

more options

Chosen Solution

FIXED by the questioner. I found a file called "global-messages-db-sqlite" in the folder "(User)>AppData>Roaming>Thunderbird>Profiles>jt*****.default". It showed the current date, but I suspect that it updated the orginal search that I ran to locate the files I wanted to delete. (The test email that had seemed to confirm the problem in fact did delete properly; I had deleted it from my Inbox but forgotten to delete it from my "Sent" folder).