1462666 - increase default autocompact threshold "mail.purge_threshhold" from 20mb to 200mb

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

7 years ago in 2011 we changed the default from 100k to 20MB, a 20,000% increase.  Even at that time figures of 100MB and 200MB were proposed.  I suggest we look at this again.  Personally I use 100MB.

Comment 1

[Eric Moore]

Thunderbird used to use mail.purge_threshhold, in KB. That was changed to mail.purge_threshhold_mb , in MB. That is why mail.purge_threshold_migrated was created about 7 years ago. I think you have a typo in the title.

Most discussions about the threshold seems to be solely about freeing up wasted disk space. It ignores the fact that the number of marked deleted but hidden messages effects the risk of a corrupt folder. 

I normally get plain text messages with no attachments that average about 10KB. Its unusual for me to get messages larger than 50KB. My main email account has a quota of 1GB. Not everybody is using Gmail and getting HTML messages with large attachments. Whatever values are chosen should be able to accommodate users with different needs, rather than forcing a one size fits all model.

The last change in settings raised the minimum setting from 100KB to 1MB and caused me to occasionally have a corrupted inbox in my Fastmail IMAP account. That problem lasted for several years. I don't have a problem with the default value being increased, but the minimum possible setting should not be increased.

Comment 2

[Nomis101]

Writing a patch for this is very simple, but on what measure does the number depend? On the maximum size of an email the provider allows, the size of the email storage space on the server or something else? Is it important if POP3 or IMAP is used?

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Nomis101 from comment #2)
> on what measure does the number depend? ...

The total potential space savings across all folders and all accounts, based on all messages deleted in the profile. It is not keyed off any one message size.  It covers all account types (except possibly maildir).

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #3)

(In reply to Nomis101 from comment #2)

on what measure does the number depend? ...

The total potential space savings across all folders and all accounts, based
on all messages deleted in the profile. It is not keyed off any one message
size. It covers all account types (except possibly maildir).

Are you willing to write the patch? I think we only want to change the value if the user hasn't changed it from the default of 20MB, so could base is on part of bug 437657

I think we should increase it to no less than 200MB

Comment 5

[Nomis101]

Sure, I can write the patch. The only thing I don't know how to do at the moment is

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #4)

I think we only want to change the value if the user hasn't changed it from the default of 20MB

Need to check this. The value needs to be increased in nsMsgDBFolder.cpp and mailnews.js, right?

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Correct. The code there (from bug 437657) demonstrates how to check a) if it's still at the default b) if the value (and I guess at that time also the pref name and units) had been migrated.

Comment 7

[Nomis101]

Attachment: Patch

This sets it to 200 MB.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Looks good to me. Ready to request approval?

Comment 9

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Comment on attachment 9067891 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch

Review of attachment 9067891 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

This seems ok to me. Needs some trivial unbitrotting though.

Comment 10

[Nomis101]

Attachment: unbitrottet patch for check-in

Thanks for the review. Unbitrotted the patch.

Comment 11

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Comment on attachment 9073655 [details] [diff] [review]
unbitrottet patch for check-in

Textbox type="number" are dead.

Comment 12

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Comment on attachment 9073655 [details] [diff] [review]
unbitrottet patch for check-in

Sorry, that why you rebased this.

Comment 13

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/cf23f4f4e5ab
increase default autocompact threshold "mail.purge_threshhold" from 20MB to 200MB. r=mkmelin

Comment 14

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Should we consider this for TB 68?

Comment 15

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2) from comment #14)

Should we consider this for TB 68?

Definitely - that is the goal

Comment 16

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

TB 68 beta 3:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-beta/rev/7d704921878b305c50a9cf912f091a71d3db21ec

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

v.fixed in beta. Thanks