Why do I have huge amounts of data in the 'JUNK' and 'INBOX' files in a subdirectory of 'Profiles/*.default/Mail/ folder?
Today I went looking for folders in my computer that contain files that are larger than 300 megabytes. To my surprise, two of the folders that showed up are in ..../AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/pt66rib2.default/Mail/mail.(my server)/. There are 355 megs of data in the 'Junk' file (which has no file extension) and 577 megs of data in the 'Inbox' file (which also has no file extension). When I opened the files in Notebook++, I found that the data is every email that has ever been in my Inbox. (Gee, I wonder if the IT department at the IRS ever thought to check there for the missing Lois Lerner emails?) For the record, I move all my messages from my Inbox and 'Empty Junk' from the Junk folder (in the Thunderbird email program) everyday. Why is all of this data still here? What's the quickest way to remove or delete the data?
Krejt Përgjigjet (9)
When was the last time you compacted your folders? Deleting emails just hides them from view. They are not deleted and the disk space cleaned up until you compact the folder.
I've never 'compacted' the folders because there 'appears' to be nothing there at the end of the day. Now you're telling me that deleting (or trashing) them merely 'hides' them from view? Exactly what does 'compacting' do to the data? Will only a certain amount of the data actually get deleted from the hard drive? Is there a purpose or point to storing the data in these files even though I've moved the mail I want to keep to its appropriate folder? Sorry for all the questions... It just seems strange that these files keep growing in size everyday with seemingly no end in sight.
Very interesting! Thank you!!!
Sorry to trouble you, but I found another huge file named 'global-messages-db.sqlite and it's over 400 megs in size. How can I fix that?
I do not know anything about that file so I cannot advise. I did do a quick Google search for it and it did bring back some info.
Maybe another volunteer can advise you on this one.
Did a search in Bing and found this: Disable global search in tools -> options -> advanced -> general -> advanced configuration -> enable global search and indexer.
Thanks again.... JT
Well, that last advice didn't work. So, I looked further and found the solution. After disabling the global search feature -and leaving it disabled-, I closed Thunderbird and deleted the file. Then I restarted the program. When I checked for the file, it was reduced to just 1.2 megs.
One more thing... I have 167851 files and 14614 folders in my email program, and before today, Thunderbird took about a minute to open. Now that the three files have been basically emptied, the program loads in 17 seconds.... :-)