Storage size on disk for large Thunderbird IMAP folders grows disproportionately
Hi there, I've recently had a problem with a couple of client PCs where their Thunderbird profile folder has grown to fill the entire hard drive. In both cases, the rele… (read more)
Hi there,
I've recently had a problem with a couple of client PCs where their Thunderbird profile folder has grown to fill the entire hard drive. In both cases, the relevant account folder in the profile's ImapMail dir had grown to over 300Gb. This account takes up 45Gb on the server (where I'm running Dovecot with maildir storage). In another case on both PCs, an 18Gb account had grown to over 90Gb.
Both client PCs are running up-to-date Thunderbird (139.0.2 64bit), one under Windows 10 and one under Windows 11. Both had auto-compact set, with the minimum saving reduced to 100Mb. Both problematic accounts are shared accounts that use a deeply-nested folder structure. In both cases, I was forced to delete and then recreate the these accounts in Thunderbird.
I'm an experienced sysadmin who is also running the mail server, so I am able to provide any extra info needed. Additionally, I accept that these are large email accounts; I'm in the process of setting up an email archive system for the client using Piler. I have read many other reports of outsize Thunderbird data folders; these are usually referring to less than 20Gb. The problems we're having seem to be an order of magnitude larger!
Thanks in advance, P.