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When opening attachments from compose new message window, thunderbird makes empty .part files in ~

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  • Last reply by Jacob

Jacob
Jacob
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I am using Thunderbird 115.2.0 on Linux / Debian “Bookworm”, although this problem has been around for a while and so has been a feature on previous versions.

If I open a file from the compose new message window, Thunderbird creates an empty file in my home directory which has a string of 8 random characters, followed by sometimes the file extension, followed by “.part”.

The following is a current sample:

~$ ls -lh *part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:34 awY5IqBI.html.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:28 cfFcyHkJ.doc.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:07 DiPn-4cu.docx.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 7 11:41 g7ngLyYT.docx.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:23 OQmzzCQA.docx.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 13:43 oudly2Yk.docx.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:24 PFBSL0l2.doc.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 13:45 quY1cBL5.docx.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 13:45 s8OlybHI.docx.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:27 _ZjeIW77.html.part

Oddly the .html.part files are not generated by opening HTML files but instead by opening PDFs.

This has been annoying me for ages and ages (on more than one machine) but it is only today that I noticed the circumstances in which these files were being created!

All other temporary files seem to go into /tmp

Does anyone know why these files might be being created and what I can do to get rid of them? I presume they serve no purpose.

Thanks!

Jacob

I am using Thunderbird 115.2.0 on Linux / Debian “Bookworm”, although this problem has been around for a while and so has been a feature on previous versions. If I open a file from the compose new message window, Thunderbird creates an empty file in my home directory which has a string of 8 random characters, followed by sometimes the file extension, followed by “.part”. The following is a current sample: ''~$ ls -lh *part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:34 awY5IqBI.html.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:28 cfFcyHkJ.doc.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:07 DiPn-4cu.docx.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 7 11:41 g7ngLyYT.docx.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:23 OQmzzCQA.docx.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 13:43 oudly2Yk.docx.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:24 PFBSL0l2.doc.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 13:45 quY1cBL5.docx.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 13:45 s8OlybHI.docx.part -rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:27 _ZjeIW77.html.part'' Oddly the .html.part files are not generated by opening HTML files but instead by opening PDFs. This has been annoying me for ages and ages (on more than one machine) but it is only today that I noticed the circumstances in which these files were being created! All other temporary files seem to go into /tmp Does anyone know why these files might be being created and what I can do to get rid of them? I presume they serve no purpose. Thanks! Jacob

All Replies (1)

Jacob
Jacob Question owner
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(I should say that one of the reasons why I struggled to find out what is creating these .part files is that one is not created when I open an attachment from an incoming email. Of course, it is pretty rare to want to open an attachment from the create new message window.)