Thunderbird constantly asks me to compact folders, even when I've just done so.
Thunderbird 45.4.0 Windows 10 Pro Microsoft Surface 4 Pro
This has started happening since I migrated my mail to a new computer, and combined folders from my old main computer as well as some which I had stored on my laptop. In the process, I completely moved almost everything in my inbox to topic-specific folders.
I've been compacting regularly. Just this morning I compacted, but already this evening, it's asking me to do it again.
All Replies (7)
What threshold is set for compacting? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders
A value of 1 MB works fine for me.
I've just set the threshold to 1 mb. I hope it works.
given that the reality is that setting the threshold higher simply delays the ultimate removal of deleted mail. Unless you have folders around 4Gb compacting is not particularly important.
I say that in the knowledge that anti virus program have a habit of finding old deleted mail in uncompacted parts of the file and deleting everything in their attempts to get at it. So it is always a trade off. Time spend waiting for compaction and radical lobotomies from the anti virus.
Mine has been set to 350Mb for years now, but I do not let av automatically fix things either.
Changing the threshold didn't work. Thunderbird is still asking me daily to compact the folders.
Could the use of the Import/Export tool have corrupted my folders? Also, after the importing, I moved a lot of emails between folders.
If the folders are corrupted, it there an easy fix?
The fix for corruption is compacting ;)
What could be happening is that the compacting is not actually completing.
Try starting Windows 10 in safe mode with networking and explicitly compact you folders in that mode. Safe mode disabled a whole raft of things, including anti virus and other disk tools that may be interrupting the disk writes that compacting does.
check in your folder pane for the appearance of NSTMP folders. They frequently appear when compacting is interrupted.
I also read on a Mozilla site that compacting a corrupt folder can make things worse. Is this not so?
This is a new computer, and I haven't installed much of anything on it yet. No anti-virus programs or output tools.
I've been compacting folders only when Thunderbird tells me I should. Just now I compacted manually, and I noticed that it was taking longer than it usually does, and that it reported how much space was saved, which I haven't noticed before. Is it possible that it wasn't really compacting before?
I'll report back.
Modified by bvlenci
You may try this: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders#Compacting_does_not_seem_to_work
Before anything else, make sure to create a backup of your Thunderbird profile. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profiles-tb#w_backing-up-a-profile