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Why do deleted messages return to my inbox later? How can I fix this problem?

  • 1 reply
  • 10 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

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Hours or sometimes days after I delete messages, they are returned to my inbox. Usually it's only one or two, so I simply delete them a second time. But this morning almost 30 returned.

Hours or sometimes days after I delete messages, they are returned to my inbox. Usually it's only one or two, so I simply delete them a second time. But this morning almost 30 returned.

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When deleted messages reappear it is likiely that the Inbox is corrupted. If you don't compact your folders regularly, performance can slow to a crawl, you can't store new messages anymore, start losing parts of messages or have deleted messages resurrected.

This is what I suggest.

  • Move all good emails out of the Inbox into suitable folders for organising.
  • Delete any emails you do not want.
  • When Inbox is empty, right click on the Inbox folder and select 'Compact'.

This will remove all traces of 'marked as deleted' emails.

  • Then right click on the Deleted folder and select 'Empty Deleted'
  • Then right click on the Deleted folder and select 'Compact'

Info on Keeping Thunderbird healthy:

Info on compacting. what it does and why it is important: