Unneeded duplicate of Gmail messages in Thunderbird
Hello, I have a GMail account, from which I download my email in Thunderbird (in Linux), and keep it ordered locally.
I noticed that my backups are very slow, because Thunderbird keeps two big directories that get updated often:
11G /username/.thunderbird/k0aa999s.default/ImapMail 7.0G /username/.thunderbird/k0aa999s.default/Mail
under /username/.thunderbird/k0aa999s.default/Mail I see I have my local folder structure and that's good, but what is under ImapMail ? I guess it is the corresponding email structure I have on the gmail server, (although gmail reports that I'm using 5.67GB, not 11GB). The 11GB are created by just 4 files: 1.6G Apr 22 09:55 Sent Mail 3.0G Apr 22 14:16 Trash 2.6G Apr 22 14:16 Important 4.3G Apr 22 14:20 All Mail
I saw it suggested to rebuild the folders in Thunderbird - I did it but nothing changed
What can I do? I dont need / want to replicate Gmail structure locally, I just want (and use) only what I have under /username/.thunderbird/k0aa999s.default/Mail
Isisombululo esikhethiwe
Your local folders store CASE, WORK, and MONEY folders. Those are unique and of value to you. The other folders in MAIL\LOCAL FOLDERS are using no space and aren't being used. In IMAP, the folders ALLMAIL and IMPORTANT are often duplicates of other folders. You could go to your web Gmail account and set those to not show on email app and see if that reduces the disk space you're seeing.
Funda le mpendulo ngokuhambisana nalesi sihloko 👍 0All Replies (7)
If you use POP and backup the Mail folder, why are you also using IMAP? If, for whatever reason you use IMAP also, you can change settings in Gmail on web to NOT show Important and All Mail.
Thank you, I think the problem here is that I'm not clear on POP / IMAP differences... Just to be sure, my workflow is: 1) I use TB at work, where my email gets ordered in its folders (and where I have the problem I just described). Messages are downloaded, not erased 2) I use Gmail web interface when I'm elsewhere
This means I'm just using POP, so I can disable IMAP, right? And I'll still be able to use TB, and to see my email by browsing to gmail?
I'm still unclear on your setup. Basically, you do not need both on one PC. If you read and download to your PC, that's POP. If you keep everything online, that's IMAP. And regardless of your choice, you can disable showing Important and/or All Mail from Gmail website. And, regardless of your preference, you can read via web (although with POP, the messages will already have been downloaded and removed from inbox.)
Hi David, sorry I'm late to reply... to my knowledge, I'm using just IMAP! See here: [settings] ... and that is the only account I have in Thunderbird. I looked everywhere, I do not see any trace of a POP account configuration - so I dont know how to disable it...
As I wrote, all the email I receive through Inbox, I store it ordered under a folder structure in "Mail/Local Folders", which is the source of the 7GB occupied space I have, e.g.:
4.0K Mail/Local Folders/Sent.sbd 4.0K Mail/Local Folders/Drafts.sbd 4.0K Mail/Local Folders/Friends.sbd 5.2M Mail/Local Folders/comp.sbd 4.0K Mail/Local Folders/Varie.sbd 13M Mail/Local Folders/money.sbd 4.0K Mail/Local Folders/Trash.sbd 4.0K Mail/Local Folders/Acquisti.sbd 181M Mail/Local Folders/Case.sbd 8.0K Mail/Local Folders/vacanze.sbd 4.0K Mail/Local Folders/net.art.sbd 4.0K Mail/Local Folders/Mobiles.sbd 4.0K Mail/Local Folders/Templates.sbd 4.0K Mail/Local Folders/Unsent Messages.sbd 3.5G Mail/Local Folders/Work.sbd 7.0G Mail/Local Folders/
The other big directory instead, seems to reflect the Gmail structure:
>ls -alrth ImapMail/imap.gmail.com/\[Gmail\].sbd/
total 8.5G
-rw-r--r--. 1 337K Nov 25 09:12 Spam.msf
-rw-r--r-- 1 3.4K Apr 21 14:49 Drafts.msf
-rw------- 1 1.6G Apr 26 15:09 Sent Mail
-rw-r--r-- 1 1.7M Apr 26 16:44 Sent Mail.msf
drwxr-xr-x. 3 4.0K Apr 27 10:36 ..
drwx------. 2 4.0K Apr 27 10:37 .
-rw------- 1 2.8M Apr 28 12:01 Trash
-rw-r--r--. 1 3.2K Apr 28 12:04 Starred.msf
-rw------- 1 2.7G Apr 28 13:13 Important
-rw-r--r-- 1 3.0M Apr 28 13:13 Important.msf
-rw------- 1 4.3G Apr 28 13:13 All Mail
-rw-r--r-- 1 41K Apr 28 13:26 Trash.msf
-rw-r--r-- 1 4.6M Apr 28 13:32 All Mail.msf
does it make any sense?
Isisombululo Esikhethiwe
Your local folders store CASE, WORK, and MONEY folders. Those are unique and of value to you. The other folders in MAIL\LOCAL FOLDERS are using no space and aren't being used. In IMAP, the folders ALLMAIL and IMPORTANT are often duplicates of other folders. You could go to your web Gmail account and set those to not show on email app and see if that reduces the disk space you're seeing.
god bless you, it was so simple... I think however that Gmail keeps it hidden in a fairly misleading place: I found it under Settings>Labels>Show in IMAP. Misleading both for the place (Labels???) and for the name: it is not simply "showing", but it actually downloads locally all the content of checked folders!
I unchecked all and now everything is how it should be...
thanks for the kind words and I'm glad your issue is solved.