I’ve been using Thunderbird for a while now and it wasn’t until recently that I learned something quite valuable. Thunderbird doesn’t permanently delete anything! 😮

I turned on a setting the other day that caused me to loose a lot of email. I paniced, did some researching and found my mail. It was still there, just hidden. Modified a few files and it all came back. Phew.

Since then I’ve learned of the Compact feature in Thunderbird. You can turn it on so it runs automatically, but it’s off by default. What this does is it actually deletes deleted messages. Forever.

After my crisis was over, I looked into Compacting folders and I ran it manually by right clicking on a folder (or inbox) and choose Compact. The results were AMAZING! The folder on my system that holds all my Thunderbird mail files went from just over 1.1 gigs to about 95 Mb! That’s freakin amazing.

Granted, I did have lots of big email attachments in there, but wow.

Now, I don’t want to turn on the Compact feature automatically as I like the fact that I can get deleted messages back when I screw up. However, it’s also good to know that you have to Compact a folder to physically delete deleted emails.

Kinda screw up sounding I know, but valuable information to know.