it does nothing to your current mails, except copy them to a new file. It does however not copy all the deleted mail since the last compact. You can not see it, but it is still there, occupying space and generally better gone for good.

Thanks Matt, if it puts it in a file, does it still put them in the sub folders I already have them in? When I used outlook, the sub folders were on my hard drive, so did not overload Outlook. I still have to go back to it to check sometimes. Dont want them mixed together. Or can I do it manually perhaps?

canjo said

Thanks Matt, if it puts it in a file, does it still put them in the sub folders I already have them in? When I used outlook, the sub folders were on my hard drive, so did not overload Outlook. I still have to go back to it to check sometimes. Dont want them mixed together. Or can I do it manually perhaps?

Every folder in Thunderbird is stored on disk as a single file. Compacting re writes this file. THe rest of the things you speak of have nothing to do with compacting.

I am guessing you are trying to manage IMAP quota usage and somehow looking for compact to do something there. All it doesw is purge the server if Thunderbird is configured to do so. and Purging again only purges already deleted mail. COmplex and mostly something you do not need to know about.

Moving mail in Thunderbird from the "account" folders to folders in the "Local Folders" part of the folder pane will see IMAP mail removed from the server and copies to the local hard disk, where it becomes your responsibility to do backups.

If in doubt, make a backup of your Thunderbird profile first: Profiles - Where Thunderbird stores your messages and other user data.

Well tried that and lost a hell of a lot of emails and can not find them in archives, trash or the backup file which did not exist anyway it seems. I am now panicing. I put the folders into the local folders, I have not compacted yet, but when thunderbird restarted all the emails were gone. HELP!!!

canjo said

Well tried that

What did you do?

It said about putting them in local folders which would be backed on my hard drive. So transferred some of the folders into this. ie removing them from the main one. On checked where the local folders are backed up to I cant find that folder. I have done a search for it and it does not exist. I never set it up in the first place it was done by email provider when my outlook crashed a couple of years ago. So I changed the location to an existing one and it said it would need to restart which it did and now there is nothing in the Local folders at all that I put in. Getting upset now so there is so much I have lost

In Thunderbird, where you view your folder names and can choose among them, there usually is a set called Local Folders which starts off blank when you install Thunderbird, and then each time you set up an IMAP account, a new set which is named after your email account on the server.

For example, see: Switching the folder pane view.

If you moved mail into a folder under Local Folders, the messages should be stored in your profile folder. However, they also should be visible when you view the contents of that folder, so it's troubling that you can't see them.

Yes very troubling. The local folders are there, but none of the folders I put in there. It only let me put so many folders and they copied rather than moved them. So they are still under the main one. But the rest I had to create new folders and I moved them from the main part to the new ones under local. It then restarted and now nothing is there. I cant find them anywhere. I have tried searching in other folders and still looking.

Could you also log into your account in a browser and see whether any extra folders ended up in there?

The old file said it was backing up to users\test\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird etc. I have a users\test but no AppData, that's what I find weird. Just did a search on a subject I knew I had and still shows that is where it is but with not file called that....Strange

?/Not sure what you mean? Log into Thunderbird? It is already logged in

AppData is a hidden folder. See: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14201/windows-show-hidden-files

Regarding logging in, I meant on your email provider's webmail site. This is for you to double-check the situation yourself, in a browser, not using Thunderbird.

OK will check that out, no wonder I cant see it. Will let you know how I go. Thanks, appreciate all your help

OK just logged in to webmail, but it is asking to chose an application, should I be choosing Thunderbird?

canjo said

OK just logged in to webmail, but it is asking to chose an application, should I be choosing Thunderbird?

Um, that's weird. Don't they just display your email on a page like Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo?

No, it asks for what application you want to view it in. Think I will have to ring them

Found the hidden folders from the link you gave me. However I guess it is the ones with that appsdata etc, but cant don't see much in the way. I don't want to muck anything up so going to ring provider tomorrow as too late for me to do now. It will probably keep me awake tonight..

Not on the provider web mail either. Don't know where they have gone