SillyDog701

[James]

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?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040803 Firefox/0.9.3

[profman]

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?

See Ramona's Preventive Browser Maintenance for some good general advice and several comments on compacting.

It "appears" to be the case that deletion (or moving) of an E-mail in Mozilla only deletes some sort of label or index, not the E-mail itself. In certain circumstances, that deleted E-mail may be recovered. (See Restore Netscape or Mozilla Deleted Mail •• Only Under Specific Conditions for a good explanation of this.) I suspect that emptying also does not get rid of the E-mail, since anti-virus scans still pick up infected mail that has been emptied. Compacting seems to get rid of the actual file contents since the AV scans can no longer find the infected E-mail.

I compact folders after I delete an infected item, so that the AV scan will not pick it up. Others on this forum have given other advice on compacting, and I'm sure some of them will show up now to give you advice.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616

[Alice]

For Mozilla and Netscape 7.xx mail, all I do is:
1. Edit | Preferences | Mail&NG | Offline and Disk Space:
Compact folders when it will save over XX KB (I use 100KB - the default setting).
2. From a Mail window: Edit | Mail&NG Account Settings | Server settings (for each POP mail account) "Empty Trash on Exit".

This article is written for Thunderbird but should also apply, in general, to Mozilla and Netscape 7.xx mail:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.phtml?t ... ng_Folders

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040625 Netscape/7.2 (ax)

[captjlddavis]

In the link referenced above:
Referenced link

Could someone please verify that Thunderbird handles "empty trash" differently than NS 7.1 and Moz ?

What it does
When you delete a message, that message does not actually get removed from the mail file. It is simply marked as deleted and becomes invisible from within the application. When you empty the Trash folder, the messages stored there are marked as deleted and made invisible, but they still in fact exist in the mail file named Trash. It is only when you compact folders that the "deleted" messages are really erased from the mail file.

NS 7.1 and Moz, when you "Empty Trash", the file size for the "Trash" folder becomes 0 in size. I believe that this is accomplished by REPLACING the "Trash" folder with an empty folder and there is no transfer to the "Recycle Bin".

Deleting a message from any other folder is as stated above:

Message is marked for deletion and is not displayed.

Please post back with any confirmation (yeh or ney)

regards:captjlddavis

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040803

[akbash]

What profman said is correct, except that when the Trash is emptied, the file size is set to 0, so it is effectively compacted. I just verified that Moz 1.7.1 and Thunderbird both behave this way. I don't use Netscape, so I can't verify that. The system Trash or Recycle Bin is never involved. Note that with Trash emptied but the Inbox not compacted, a message's data remains in the Inbox, where a virus scanner may still find it. But not in the Trash.

The difference between Thunderbird and Mozilla Mail lies almost entirely in the UI. I expect Netscape to behave the same as Mozilla.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a3) Gecko/20040811 Firefox/0.9.1+

[captjlddavis]

akbash,

Thanks for the reply. Thats pretty much what I found. ( I don't use TB, so that is what I was looking for)

regards:captjlddavis

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040803

[Alice]

When you delete a message, that message does not actually get removed from the mail file. It is simply marked as deleted and becomes invisible from within the application. When you empty the Trash folder, the messages stored there are marked as deleted and made invisible, but they still in fact exist in the mail file named Trash. It is only when you compact folders that the "deleted" messages are really erased from the mail file.

Earlier in the article it was said,

If you check "Empty Trash on Exit" it will empty and compact the Trash folder when you exit Thunderbird.

I agree, the mozillazine article is misleading as far as deleting messages from the trash.

If you delete the messages in the Trash folder by selecting them and using the Delete button or delete key, then the messages, although invisible, still exist inside the Trash file, taking up space and readable if you open the Trash file in Notepad, until you compact the Trash.

However, as pointed out, if you use the "Empty Trash" option to delete the messages, then the messages are in fact removed and the folder is compacted (file size = 0). The "Empty Trash on Exit" option in the mail account's Server Settings (using Mozilla 1.7.2) accomplishes the same thing, removing all messages from the Trash folder and compacting the trash automatically.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040803