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Can't get mail. Error message: EXPUNGE failed.

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When I try to get mail I receive this error message: "The current operation on Inbox did not succeed. The mail server for account ... responded with EXPUNGE failed. What do I do?

When I try to get mail I receive this error message: "The current operation on Inbox did not succeed. The mail server for account ... responded with EXPUNGE failed. What do I do?

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Hello there emmrys.

We have read your message.


We try To help you.

IMAP - Is Mail A Pain? Like other old protocols, IMAP’s initial design was based on a set of conditions and assumptions which are no longer true. As such, it includes features that, albeit originally intended as performance optimizations, are now more of a nuisance.

Deleting emails, in particular, is a rather convoluted process: messages cannot be deleted directly, they can only be marked for deletion. The server will delete them only when it receives the IMAP EXPUNGE command from the client. In plain English, that means “permanently remove now all messages marked for deletion.”

This is problematic if you access your mailbox from multiple devices because you might find out that a message deleted from one device will continue to show up on others. It can be particularly frustrating once you throw smartphones and push email into the mix, especially since most of them access email via Exchange (a newer and constantly updated protocol) and will handle emails, including the deletion part, just as expected.

The root of the problem is that all IMAP-enabled email clients send the EXPUNGE command very rarely, for example, only when the user closes the application or once a day (or never, in extreme cases).

Have you been busy with an exhibition to hack or maybe something like that?


Greetings Firefox volunteer.

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