Can I delete multiple All Mail files in my Profiles directory?
I'm trying to trim down my hard drive, and I see that my Profiles folder has 2 ImapMail subfolders. In the first of them, imap-gmail, I have 14 All Mail files numbered "-1" to "-13" plus the most recent All Mail (today's date), unnumbered. Most of these All Mail files are quite large. Can I delete all of them except the most recent, unnumbered one? In the second subfolder, imap-gmail1, the files are all from before 2025, and instead of multiple "All Mail" files I have multiple "rstmp" files. What's the deal? Can I delete this whole folder? Is it a backup? Thanks for your help. FYI, I'm up to date in Windows 11 and Thunderbird, with a fairly new computer. I hope I've provided enough into. Looking forward to your help. all the best, Steve
Ausgewählte Lösung
Gmail stores all your email - incoming, outgoing, archived, spam everything in one folder called 'All Mail'.
Gmail understands that's useless for general use. They invented 'labels' which work like a tag on each email in 'All Mail'. The applied label means emails can be displayed in a view that looks more like normal folders. If you logon to the gmail webmail account and look in 'All Mail' you will see each email will have an appropriate 'label' applied. If no label then it means it's archived.
Thunderbird has no concept of 'labels'. It access the label/folder on server eg: Inbox and downloads a copy of anything displaying in server 'Inbox' label.
If you look at emails in 'All Mail' folder in Thunderbird, you see it does not display the labels.
If anything is deleted from 'All Mail' , it means it will be deleted off server, those deleted emails will disappear from whatever imap folder they were in because they will not exist on server. I would advise you never do anything in an 'All Mail' folder.
In Thunderbird, unsubscribe from seeing 'All Mail'. In gmail webmail account accessed via a browser: Settings > See all settings > selects 'Labels' tab and in System Labels section - 'All Mail' uncheck the 'Show in imap' checkbox.
Alle Antworten (4)
I don't have a complete answer for you, but one thing you can do is Unsubscribe from any "All Mail" folders for all Gmail accounts. Because of the peculiar way Gmail works, these folders show mail that's already in other IMAP folders, which is confusing and redundant. Once you Unsubscribe from them, they will be deleted from your computer... but not from the Gmail server, so there's no danger of data loss. Once that happens, you will have a better idea about which of those remaining files are in active use.
I have found that if I change a server name in an account, I can wind up with what appear to be duplicate files. I don't remember the specifics, but that seemed to be the cause.
Regarding the "rstmp" files, I have no idea! I don't have any on my computer, and I find no reference to them on the Internet.
Thank you so much. That's a beginning. All the best, Steve
Ausgewählte Lösung
Gmail stores all your email - incoming, outgoing, archived, spam everything in one folder called 'All Mail'.
Gmail understands that's useless for general use. They invented 'labels' which work like a tag on each email in 'All Mail'. The applied label means emails can be displayed in a view that looks more like normal folders. If you logon to the gmail webmail account and look in 'All Mail' you will see each email will have an appropriate 'label' applied. If no label then it means it's archived.
Thunderbird has no concept of 'labels'. It access the label/folder on server eg: Inbox and downloads a copy of anything displaying in server 'Inbox' label.
If you look at emails in 'All Mail' folder in Thunderbird, you see it does not display the labels.
If anything is deleted from 'All Mail' , it means it will be deleted off server, those deleted emails will disappear from whatever imap folder they were in because they will not exist on server. I would advise you never do anything in an 'All Mail' folder.
In Thunderbird, unsubscribe from seeing 'All Mail'. In gmail webmail account accessed via a browser: Settings > See all settings > selects 'Labels' tab and in System Labels section - 'All Mail' uncheck the 'Show in imap' checkbox.
Thank you Toad-Hall. FYI, I deleted all the "All Mail-#" files in my ImapMail folder, and only kept the unnumbered "All Mail" file. No problems. I then deleted the Imap-Gmail1 folder and its subfolders, and that too caused no problems. Saved myself 30GB of disk space! All the best, Steve
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