137365 - Deleted messages remain in mailbox files, causing slowdown after deleting large attachments

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(MailNews Core :: Database, defect)

Description

[Skewer]

Procedure: Create a test mailbox, and send it lots of messages containing large
attachments. Delete every message in that mail account, and clear them from the
trash.

Expected: Load time for that account is nil, because all the messages are gone
forever.

Actual: Nothing was actually deleted from the mailbox files, so you still have
to wait for that old junk to be processed.

Build: 20020411 WXP

Comment 1

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

INVALID.
Compact the folder if you really want to delete the messages.

Comment 2

[Skewer]

Dare I ask why this extra step is necessary?

Comment 3

[Skewer]

Dare I repeat myself?

Comment 4

[Skewer]

Reopening for clarification: Why does the user have to compact the folder to get
rid of messages that shouldn't be there to begin with? When you move a message
out of one mailbox and into another (or trash) that message should be completely
removed from that mailbox.

Comment 5

[David :Bienvenu]

please don't reopen bugs to ask a question! The reason the message is left in
the file is because we use the berkeley mailbox format for compatibility reasons
- to completely remove a deleted message, we'd have to copy all of the file over
to a temp file, except for the deleted message, and then copy the temp file over
the original file. Which would be very slow for large folders. But that's what
compact does.

You can set a pref that will automatically compress your folders when a certain
amount of space is wasted - Edit | Preferences | Offline & Disk Space -
automatically compact folders...