Why is the trash automatically emptied on my email account?
My emails used to be saved in the trash and I kept all of them for future reference. Now they just disappear. Is there a setting I can change to change this?
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re: My emails used to be saved in the trash and I kept all of them for future reference.
'Trash' is for items you do not want. 'Trash' means 'Rubblish' to throw away; discard; delete.
They are only in the Trash because you selected to 'delete' them or you moved them manually. The reason for having a 'Trash' folder is to act as a stop gap because sometimes you might delete an email in error and want to rescue it.
Trash folder is not the place to store items that you want to keep. Please create new folders to organise your wanted emails. Use 'Trash' for unwanted emails.
Trash folder (also known as 'Deleted') can be auto emptied on exit if option is selected. Tools > Account Settings > Server Settings for the mail account or Menu Icon > Options > Account Settings > Server Settings for the mail account
uncheck/select as appropriate: 'Empty Trash on exit' click on OK.
If you have an Imap mail account, there may be a different policy used by the server. Some auto empty Trash folder periodically by default and there is nothing you can do about it. After all, Trash is for unwanted items, so after a period of time allowing for rescuing an email deleted in error, they clear this folder to create more space.
Background info: When you select to delete an email or put it in 'Trash', from your point of view it moves from eg: inbox to 'Trash' In reality, it is still in the Inbox as a 'marked as deled' email hidden from view. So it is still taking up space in the Inbox. When you compact your Inbox folder those 'marked as deleted' are removed, thus freeing up space.
When you see a folder in the Folder Pane, this is actually an mbox file (assuming you Pop mail account or synchronise subscribed imap folders).
When emails are downloaded they are not stored as individual .eml files, they are stored one after the other in the order they were downloaded in the same 'file'. So you do not want to put all your emails into a single or a couple of files. Create folders to organise mail into smaller subsets. Archive older mail to free up space in regular used folders. See info on Archiving. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/archived-messages
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Chosen Solution
re: My emails used to be saved in the trash and I kept all of them for future reference.
'Trash' is for items you do not want. 'Trash' means 'Rubblish' to throw away; discard; delete.
They are only in the Trash because you selected to 'delete' them or you moved them manually. The reason for having a 'Trash' folder is to act as a stop gap because sometimes you might delete an email in error and want to rescue it.
Trash folder is not the place to store items that you want to keep. Please create new folders to organise your wanted emails. Use 'Trash' for unwanted emails.
Trash folder (also known as 'Deleted') can be auto emptied on exit if option is selected. Tools > Account Settings > Server Settings for the mail account or Menu Icon > Options > Account Settings > Server Settings for the mail account
uncheck/select as appropriate: 'Empty Trash on exit' click on OK.
If you have an Imap mail account, there may be a different policy used by the server. Some auto empty Trash folder periodically by default and there is nothing you can do about it. After all, Trash is for unwanted items, so after a period of time allowing for rescuing an email deleted in error, they clear this folder to create more space.
Background info: When you select to delete an email or put it in 'Trash', from your point of view it moves from eg: inbox to 'Trash' In reality, it is still in the Inbox as a 'marked as deled' email hidden from view. So it is still taking up space in the Inbox. When you compact your Inbox folder those 'marked as deleted' are removed, thus freeing up space.
When you see a folder in the Folder Pane, this is actually an mbox file (assuming you Pop mail account or synchronise subscribed imap folders).
When emails are downloaded they are not stored as individual .eml files, they are stored one after the other in the order they were downloaded in the same 'file'. So you do not want to put all your emails into a single or a couple of files. Create folders to organise mail into smaller subsets. Archive older mail to free up space in regular used folders. See info on Archiving. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/archived-messages