A Question about Compacting

Let's say for the sake of argument that I have a dozen emails in my Inbox, three dozen in my Sent box, a few dozen in various other folders I've created and a dozen in the trash. When does one compact? Does one compact ALL the boxes/folders? How often do you do this?

Suppose I have just read those dozen emails and I decide to delete them. When they reach the Trash, if I decide to Empty the trash immediately should I compact before emptying or after? My understanding is that simply emptying the trash does not really get rid of the emails physically, but rather from view. So when would be the best time to compact? Prior to deletion or after?

 

Hi James

On compacting folders, there is a setting in Edit | Preferences | Mail & Newsgroups | Offline & Disk Space "Compact folders when it will save over ____ KB. I also suggest in my Preventive Maintenance guideline:

"Compact your Mail folders frequently in order to release unused space to other applications. Compacting compresses the files, thus taking up less HDD space. Compacting should be done when messages have been moved or deleted.
In Mail & Newsgroups, click: File | Compact Folders. "

Compact all folders in all your Accounts.

Also, you are correct, that deleting messages, which moves them to the Trash folder, does not delete them from the HDD. You must compact your folders after emptying Trash.

HTH,

Ramona

 

Thanks, Ramona. That setting doesn't appear to apply to Thunderbird. I can't seem to find it.

 

Hi James,

You're so right, that setting isn't in Thunderbird, and I'm sure you can tell I rarely use it. However, just continue to compact your folders frequently, or you might try adding the scripts/lines to the prefs.js file, which are mentioned in the Mozilla KB Article: How to Compact Folders:


Ramona