Of course it's correct. It's an incoming email message. You don't own it, so you can't edit it. Use reply, or forward or Edit As New Message and you get your own copy if it which you can edit.

Actually, I beg to differ. It is not correct. Now with the email totally destroyed, there is no way to actually do a reply. Inhibit editing (delete) by all means, but not by destroying the mail with no way back. It is obviously a major flaw and needs to be corrected. Regards

You can add "nag" functions if you're prone to accidental deletions.

https://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/index-en.html#cbd

But you say you deleted text then tried to delete it, so it does seem that you mistakenly thought you were editing the message.

The real issue here is that it should have gone to trash/bin/deleted etc. Thunderbird's design is not intended to delete without trace.

Hello Zenos, I agree with you - it should not have destroyed all traces of the email and is obvious to me this is a design flaw. I was hoping that someone might know of a secret way to retrieve it. Unfortunately my ISP provider account is set up to delete the email once downloaded, so I cannot go into that account to download it again.

Any chance you were pressing the Shift key when you hit delete? This shortcut bypasses the Trash folder.

Airmail said

Any chance you were pressing the Shift key when you hit delete? This shortcut bypasses the Trash folder.

Possible, I have just repeated the exercise and this time it did place it the trash. So, maybe I have to admit to a finger/keyboard error. Strange, as I am generally careful about these things. But then.....only human.

OK, here's the thing. If I sent myself an email and edit the received email as stated - it places it in Trash. However, if I edit an email from someone else, it destroys it ! So, I was not hitting unwanted keys - the problem is real !

Here is the thing. As stated above, you cannot edit an incoming mail. You can continue to try but the results will be the same. It is not a problem. If you hit delete when on an incoming message it is going to go away.

Airmail said

Here is the thing. As stated above, you cannot edit an incoming mail. You can continue to try but the results will be the same. It is not a problem. If you hit delete when on an incoming message it is going to go away.

Yes, I know that now - but the issue remains - making the email disappear without a trace or an option to retrieve it is also just plain bad programming.

I am not interested in making this a part of my normal practices - but a design flaw is a design flaw and should be corrected.

If you do not try to edit the message and press Delete what happens?

Airmail said

If you do not try to edit the message and press Delete what happens?

Interesting - same result - it vanishes. Does not go into trash. Again, if I send myself a message and hit Del - it will save it in Trash. But any message form someone else just disappears.

Go to Account Settings-Server Settings What do you have set for... When I Delete a Message

We must be running different versions of Thunderbird - I do not have that option in the Server Settings window. I am running 57.0.2 and it is up to date. Oops - sorry - that was FireFox - Thunderbird is 52.5.0 (32bit)

I guess I should have asked you POP or IMAP. It is only an option on IMAP accounts.

Ah, yes, a POP account. I do have my ISP server settings separate from Thunderbird and it deletes email after successful download - that is part of the reason this was a bugbear as I could not go back into my ISP server and retrieve the lost email. No matter now, as I will avoid ever doing this again. But hopefully the issue will be resolved for others that may fall into this trap. Thanks all

I lost more than one message while writing a response to an email. Deleting a message without sending to trash first should not be an option.