It sounds like a SPAM email to me. What does it say exactly (no summary. Exactly.)

Hi - I deleted it - it basically said it had all of my info, bank #'s, credit card #'s - address, phone -- the usual stuff. I went to the Eleven forum - they basically said the same thing - spam - just change p.w. -- so I did - haven't seen anything from the sender so I guess it is solved. Agree?

The spam email was probably trying to get you to use a link or something in the email or at very least extort monies and cause a load of worry. Complying would also confirm your email address was alive and they would keep pestering you. I very much doubt they had any info regarding you except the email address. They were just being nasty and hoping you would fall for the scam. They may have got the email address from a number of sources. eg: if you had ever posted it in a public forum.

Best practise is to never click on anything in that email, delete it and then compact the folder to completely remove all traces of it.

Best practise is to never click on anything in that email, delete it and then compact the folder to completely remove all traces of it.

I did delete it - not sure what "compact" the folder entails.

Thanks again...

re :not sure what "compact" the folder entails.

Useful Background info to help explain things: When you download emails into a folder eg: Inbox, in reality, those emails are being written one after the other into an mbox text file. So imagine it like this: a single text document where each paragraph is an email. When you delete or move an email in the Inbox, it gets 'marked as deleted' and hidden. The email may appear in another folder eg: Trash. But it's still in the original file, just hidden. Why? because if you need to undo something, that 'marked as deleted' can be 'unmarked as deleted' and display email again. Using the text document and paragraph senario - That 'marked as deleted' email is like putting a red line though a paragraph. As you can imagine, after several deletions or moves, that text document is begining to look messy with all those red strikethoughs. You may end up with more red strikethroughs than good parts. So, you need to perform some housekeeping type of maintenance and that's where 'compacting' is used.

Compacting (do not confuse with compressing - they are not the same), a new file is created and Thunderbird checks through the original looking for all the good wanted mail that does not have the 'marked as deleted' and they get written to the new file. Then the new file replaces the old file. Now, it looks tidy, it has removed all those unwanted deletions, so has decreased the file size saving you space. The file is less vulnerable to corruption.

From an Anti-Virus point of view - assuming you allow scanning of your profile....if you have not compacted the file and it finds that 'marked as deleted' spam email - it might say it has found something undesireable and ask you if it can fix the file Or worse it might try to auto fix the file. This can be rather allarming to the user. Unfortunately, Anti-Virus does not understand the file is not just one email, so a 'fix' may end up losing all emails in the file - aka Inbox. If you ever get an AV saying something is wrong - do not allow it to fix and the first thing you do is see if compacting sorts out the problem.

It's good practise to compact folders that get a lot of deletions or movement of emails from one folder to an other. Typically, the following folders would need more compacting than others, Inbox, Drafts and Spam.

How to compact a folder:

• Right click on folder and select 'Compact'

Advise you do not use that folder whilst it compacts. it will only take a few seconds. Never, exit/close Thunderbird whilst compacting is in process. Compacting info will get displayed in the bottom Status Bar.

More info on compacting:

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/compacting-folders

Thanks so much for that explanation. I have never heard of it and will go do some compacting. Really appreciate your knowledge. Thanks again.

I changed my password on 3/1. On 3/4 I got another one. Basically the same garbage. I deleted it and guess I should change my password again. Doing that didn't seem to stop another one. I can change it within Thunderbird, right? Thanks....

Ignore spam emails.

You changed your password with your mail provider - that is enough.