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POP messages not being deleted from server

  • 3 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by Matt

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I know there are tons of posts on this subject, but I've read many without finding an answer. After over 3000 emails built up on the server because of problems on my end with downloading email, I finally have Thunderbird working again. When I installed it, "Leave messages on server for at most 30 days" was checked by default. I turned it off. However, NO messages are being deleted from the server. I tried "leave messages on server for at most 7 days" hoping that would clear out the backlog. Nothing changed. Today, before downloading, I once again unchecked the "leave messages on server" box. But everything is still on the server - now 3,248 unread (with many read from before I got Thunderbird up and running), and I have manually deleted hundreds, both read and unread.

Even if for some reason it's not possible to auto-delete old messages at such a late date, messages I just downloaded should have disappeared from the server, right? That's what always happened before.

I know there are tons of posts on this subject, but I've read many without finding an answer. After over 3000 emails built up on the server because of problems on my end with downloading email, I finally have Thunderbird working again. When I installed it, "Leave messages on server for at most 30 days" was checked by default. I turned it off. However, NO messages are being deleted from the server. I tried "leave messages on server for at most 7 days" hoping that would clear out the backlog. Nothing changed. Today, before downloading, I once again unchecked the "leave messages on server" box. But everything is still on the server - now 3,248 unread (with many read from before I got Thunderbird up and running), and I have manually deleted hundreds, both read and unread. Even if for some reason it's not possible to auto-delete old messages at such a late date, messages I just downloaded should have disappeared from the server, right? That's what always happened before.

All Replies (3)

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All that and no clue as to who the mail provider actually is. Is it outlook, who require special settings on their web site to actually delete mail, or Google who make it as hard as they can or someone else.

Do you have an anti virus program scanning mail? Does it delete when you turn off the mail scanning. Some of them are quite bad at actually relaying some of the POP mail commands.

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Oh damn, sorry. The provider is Yahoo mail. I can't turn off mail scanning without turning off a host of other important protections, so I have sent an email to BitDefender asking if it would interfere with Thunderbird's delete-on-server function in Thunderbird.

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My understanding is it is as simple as '

  1. Open the Bitdefender console by double clicking on the Bitdefender system tray icon
  2. Go to Antivirus
  3. Uncheck the Scan incoming mail option

But as I do not use the product I can only go by google search.