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Thunderbird not deleting email from pop3 server

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  • Last reply by Matt

DonMarquardt
DonMarquardt
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I have the latest Thunderbird installed and am using it for two separate email addresses, both pop3. The server settings are identical as far as I can see but for one account Thunderbird deletes emails from the server as soon as downloaded and for the other it does not. On the second account I checked "Leave messages on server" for 1 day and that did not delete the messages either.

I tried running in troubleshoot mode and that made no difference. Any suggestions appreciated.

Thanks

I have the latest Thunderbird installed and am using it for two separate email addresses, both pop3. The server settings are identical as far as I can see but for one account Thunderbird deletes emails from the server as soon as downloaded and for the other it does not. On the second account I checked "Leave messages on server" for 1 day and that did not delete the messages either. I tried running in troubleshoot mode and that made no difference. Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks

All Replies (3)

Toad-Hall
Toad-Hall
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re : one account Thunderbird deletes emails from the server as soon as downloaded

That means you have not selected to 'Leave messages on server' So server deletes all popped messages automatically. This is the default setting for all pop accounts on all servers regardless of whatever third party email client you use.

re: On the second account I checked "Leave messages on server" for 1 day and that did not delete the messages either.

It will not immediately delete messages off server because you have instructed it to leave them on server. You also selected 'For at most 1 day' So assuming you started up Thunderbird on the next day and were in online mode and pop accessed server, those emails should have been deleted off the server. Are those emails still in the Inbox or did you move them to other folders?


If you selected 'Until I delete them' In POP Inbox those emails you manually deleted would have been deleted and you cannot see them in Inbox, but they would have appeared in the 'Trash' folder. However, in reality, those deleted email are now 'marked as deleted' and 'hidden' but they still exist in the mbox file just in case you deleted in error and then have a way of recovering them. To remove them completely you would need to compact the folder and then when it next connects to server they get deleted off server.

DonMarquardt
DonMarquardt Mwenye swali
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I don't want to leave messages on the server. This is what is mysterious. One account works as I want, deleting messages from the server as soon as downloaded to my T-bird account. The other does not delete messages from the server no matter if I check "Leave Messages on the server" and #days to 1 or uncheck the "Leave..."

The server is a gmail server. Do you know if there any settings on the server to check?

Thanks for your quick response.

Don

Matt
Matt
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DonMarquardt said
The server is a gmail server. Do you know if there any settings on the server to check?

go to this link in your account at google. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/fwdandpop In the second item change what happens when mail is accessed with POP to Delete instead of leave in inbox.

That is all.