Your using a lot of very different terms like they are similar there.

Compact... a housekeeping function. Very important and does not remove an mail you have not already deleted or your anti virus has not quarantined.

Archive... Moves mail from it's existing location to another to make navigation easier and to keep overall folder sizes smaller. Smaller folders mean less troubles. Archive can exan be configured to retain the existing folder structure when filing by year.

Neither of these things takes mail away or makes it any harder to find, unless you are not sure if it was 2012 or 2013 say.

The message that you have run out of disk space is almost certainly only part of the message. I think it also says something about write privileges. Perhaps you could advise the exact error message.

What anti virus program are you using?

Hi Matt,

Thank you for your reply. The issue I am referring to is what happens when compacting and archiving can no longer free up enough space and I therefore have to store my email elsewhere?

The problem is that sooner or later, one will run out of email space - at which point one has to delete potentially important email or make a backup. If a backup is made, how is one going to easily access the content within the backup?

I was thinking about this today and thought a possible solution would be to copy Thunderbird's email folders to a backup folder, while keeping the same folder structure intact under the backup folder. Then if needed, the folder settings in Thunderbird could be pointed to the backup folder to read the backup. Then when finished, I could set the settings back to the latest folders.

This would be a clumsy and irksome workaround. It would be nice if the option to do the same (add and save alternative folder settings for backups with the ability to switch between them) existed as a feature in Thunderbird.

As mail gets past 20Gb for many people, Thunderbird is adapting and removing it's 4Gb per folder limit. Really the only limit is available disk space and with drives over 4Tb becoming mainstream that does not represent a limit

However for truly archival storage I suggest you use the import export tools add-on to actually export the folders to archival disks. Either as EML or MBOX. If you need that information later you can latter import it again.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/

Thank you Matt,

Your answer is helpful and appreciated.

-)

ImportExportTools seems to be the best add-on available for the job, but more is needed, as IET can either save to mbox (unreadable) format or it can save a folder full of mails in .eml (readable) format. But I have a dozen profiles with 100s of folders & subfolders (clients, suppliers, A/B/C etc.) that I want to back up, in readable format, within existing folder structures (otherwise it will be difficult to find any one particular mail). IET doesn't go this far.

I'm surprised I haven't found something that does this yet, & I'm surprised it's not already a feature in TB, especially for corporate users. Maybe 20 years of Internet isn't enough yet for archiving to be an issue. If not, it will be soon.

Thank you Newrone,

You are confirming the issue that I see. Finding specific information within a specific email years down the line can be an enormous problem without an appropriate reader.

So, from my perspective there is a very big growing need for a long term viewer. This could be a scaled down version of Thunderbird that simply serves the purpose of reviewing past, backed up email.

Possible solution: Create a toggle switch that allows user to switch source folders (the folders that store the emails) from current folders to one or more backup's folders.

This should be a relatively simple plugin to make.

Let's ask the developers for this. (Not sure how to do so.)

I think the issue here is one of expectation, not one of ability.

Thunderbird has a very competent profile manager that allow you to archive the entire profile on an annual basis.

Internally Thunderbird has automatic archiving that moves mail from the current working set of folder to archive folders. Really I see nothing wrong with this approach. My mail folders are 20 or 30Gb but disks are cheap and there is no chasing for that mail from January 2011.... or was that December 2010.

Perhaps you could explain what is the purpose of this external archive of data. My observations on most folks storage is that it is based on habit not any real business case or efficiency. What is the advantage of removing a load of mail to another storage location. It certainly does not make Thunderbird run better.

It certainly makes my mail server run better.

I have 10,000s of messages (+ attachments), that for the most part serve no further purpose. I am currently archiving my (IMAP) mail (began before my previous post & still at it) into folders where I can locate & open a particular message at will without it occupying limited server space. It makes no sense for all my accounts to be running at 95%-97%, or even to purchase more server space for mail I may never open again. It's not a case of limited disk space - on the contrary, that's where I want to put them.

All my profiles are regularly backed up (e.g. in case of a disk failure), but I can't open a mail from a backed-up profile without re-importing the whole profile.

I have at least found that with ImportExportTools I can export a range of folders at the same level, all at once, but this doesn't include subfolders.

I see local folders as performing the offline storage you refer to. Stored locally, immediately accessible and not on the server.

I will admit I actually think using the import export tools to export an MBOX from large IMAP folders and re-importing the MBOXt to Local folders is less fraught with synchronization issues that a simple move from one set of folders to another. IMAP servers appear to loose the plot on moves into the thousands of mails. but exporting nested folders as MBOX and re-importing them with the import export tools is not all that difficult.

But by setting the archive folder for an IMAP account to local folders, simply pressing A on completion of action will archive the mail and move it to the designated local folder, preserving folder structure if that is what you have archive set to do..

The menu for import/export offers Export folder with sub folders (with structure). A one click export for your nested folders.

The import options also support sub folders.

Now to backed up profiles. Use the profile manger to create "new" profiles that point to your backed up profile. Use the profile switcher add-on to switch to the backups. No re-import required, just the extra step of pointing the profile manager to the profile for use in the first place.

I really do like the profile switcher. makes a rather messy process a matter of a couple of clicks. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/profileswitcher/

Hi Matt,

I think you have a solution that will work for me. To make sure that I understand what you are saying in simple terms, is the following the right idea?

- Current email runs from local folders. (Profile A) - Past backed up email stored in backup folder or drive or wherever. (Profile B)

Therefore, switch from Profile A to Profile B or visa versa to read email from one or the other?

Seems elegant enough.

-)

Personally I cheat and use a dedicated pop account in Thunderbird for the storage of Archive. The account does not work for email, it points to Verizon which is in a country other than mine and certainly not somewhere I have an account.. By changing the local path in the account settings that single account is stored on a different drive to the rest of the profile folder. I really do not recommend this for regular mail accounts as it is messy for support to get their head around. But for archive it results in an archive drive for mail. O a drive separate to the profile folder.

So really I am suggesting you can use multiple profiles. The drawback there is they still have active accounts and it is easy to mess up and get new mail in the "archive" profile. Very important to startup offline when doing things like that..

The "archive" account is I think preferable, but it is a lot more demanding to setup in the first place. and I periodically tell Thunderbird to get all mail and it pops up an error for that account. Despite being told not to get mail for it.