188748 - *.msf file should reduce in size when I delete some emails

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(MailNews Core :: Backend, defect)

Description

[Antonio.Xu]

Build ID: Mozilla 1.3b(Trunk)
Mailnews's *.msf should reduce in size when I delete some emails.
Steps to Reproduce:

1. Check the size of your Inbox's *.msf file. 
2. launch mailnews
3. delete some emails(I delete 100 eamils)
4. empty your trash
5. close mailnews
6. Check the size of your Inbox's *.msf file again. 
Expected Results:
Mailnews's *.msf should reduce in size 
Actual Results:
Mailnews's *.msf didn't reduce in size 

This is a very important bug, the *.msf file will more and more big while I 
keep on using mozilla mailnews client, finally, my home directory will be full.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

This is why "Compact this folder" exists....

Comment 2

[David :Bienvenu]

the .msf file stores a change log and only reduces in size when it decides it
needs to do a compress commit, i.e., a certain amount of space will be saved.
Compact folder will also, as Boris says, produce a minimal size .msf file

Comment 3

[Antonio.Xu]

I have used "Compact this folder" to reduce in size of my .msf file, but I 
found it seems didn't work. My .msf file'didn't reduce in size. By the way, I 
found a very serious problem, I found a lot of emails had beed losed in my 
folder after I used "Compact this folder". So I think I should reopen this bug.

Comment 4

[David :Bienvenu]

antonio, folder corruption has nothing to do with this bug (and you should open
a new bug for any folder corruption). This bug is not valid - deleting a message
doesn't neccesarily make the .msf file smaller, and that's by design.

Comment 5

[Antonio.Xu]

So if "Compact this folder" was works fine, this function will reduce in size 
of my .msf file. So if the problem is "Compact this folder" didn't work, I will 
open another bug for this issue.

Comment 6

[Boris Folgmann]

"Compact this folder" does not work for me with mozilla 1.4.1.

I've deleted the entire contents of some folders, e.g. tomcat mailing list
>60000 mails. Now the .msf files still waste megabytes and compacting does not
change anything.

Look here:
-rw-rw-r--    1 boris    boris         14M 21. Nov 16:58 Struts.msf
-rw-rw-r--    1 boris    boris         13M 21. Nov 16:59 Tomcat.msf

I want to keep the folders and associated filters, so deleting the folders is
not an option (and no cure for this bug). The mails were located on an IMAP server.

It's also interesting to note that the "Opening Folder..." text in the status
line does not vanish after some time, when I select one of these folders.

Comment 7

[David :Bienvenu]

If you're talking about imap folders, you can just delete the local .msf files
and they will get regenerated. They should shrink at some point if you've
deleted lots of messages, but it sounds like it's not happening for you.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

[unable to reach reporter]

remarking INVALID per bienvenu

If you still have a problem, reopen with testcase using current trunk build version.