Hello, larjones

Have you checked under Tools -> Account Settings-> Server Settings (located directly under your email address) -> then on the right side look for server settings again and go down to where it says "leave messages on server for 14 days" and uncheck then click ok. (if you have more than 1 email address set up please repeat steps for all.

Please let me know if this helped. Thank you

Well, first, there is no such option in the version I'm running, at least not where you've suggested or anywhere else I can find.

Second, I have never had that set up to hold messages on the server. Everything, including trash, has normally been saved on my PC.

Can you tell me what version of Thunderbird you are using? You can find this under help and click about Thunderbird. Thank you

Yes, 24.5.0

Ok if you are using Thunderbird 24.5.0 you should see the same thing when you open account settings (look at picture attached)

Maybe I should, but I don't.

Are you able to take a screen shot of your account settings page like I did so I can see what you're looking at. If you need help with this let me know.

As I said......

Ok , I see you are using a IMAP type server instead of a POP3 server so that's where we were losing each other.

Alright so in your account settings go to synchronizing & storage and see if the "keep messages for this account on this computer" is selected if not select it. Then go down to the last section and make sure dont delete any messages is selected as well. Thank you

All of those are already selected as you suggest. To recap, none of my settings have been changed. In the past, literally for years and thousands of emails, trash has been kept until I deleted it.

Has anyone else been having this problem?

I am not aware of anyone else having this issue. Do you access your email from any other devices or do you log in to your email account from charter itself, is Thunderbird the only way you access it?

I do both. T-bird from home, via Charter website at work. I do appreciate your help so far.

Not a problem, I'm here to help. Usually if you use the IMAP type server what ever you delete directly from the charter email will or should not show up in thunderbird. When you use a pop server it can retain info on thunderbird. But from what your stating is it's been IMAP since first install. Generally updates would not change server types or settings, but we can change the account to a pop server instead and see if it still ends up deleting them. If you want to try that let me know

I think this might be charter at work.

they specifically state here http://www.myaccount.charter.com/customers/Support.aspx?SupportArticleID=2355#retention

"Any Emails in your Inbox or in your folders other than the trash folder will be retained until you delete them. However if you mailbox becomes full you may not be able to send or receive emails and may need to delete mail. "

That they exclude Trash makes me think they empty it for you.

That may apply to my online Charter email account, but I don't think they are deleting anything in Thunderbird on my PC.

Your account is IMAP... by definition that is synchronized to the charter server. If they delet it on the server it will be deleted in all devices asccessing that imap account.

I'll look into it. Thanks.

Its definitely a possibility, but according to the article they give you 1gb of storage which is a lot. But if you have a lot of emails then they may automatically do so.

I am looking at the article and if you are able to log in to your charter account from where you are at now, can you go to preferences and look for the circled option in this list make sure it is not selected.