212437 - Deleted mail files in inbox and trash box look deleted but remain in disk file

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect)

Description

[Aaron Sloman]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4a) Gecko/20030401
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4a) Gecko/20030401

I wondered why the size of my .mozilla directory kept growing, then took a look
and found that Mail subdirectories, e.g. Inbox and Trash had old messages that I
had deleted long ago. I saved several megabytes by using an editor to delete them.
This should not be necessary.

It appears that deletion is virtual: i.e. the message is simply no longer shown.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Delete message from inbox (holding shift fails to prevent it going to Trash)
2.Delete message from Trash

Actual Results:  
Six months later look in the files in the mail directory: messages still there
though not displayed bymail


Expected Results:  
Deleted the messages completely and utterly.

(I'd like to be able to have an option to delete irrecoverably from the Inbox
file without having to go on and delete from Trash.)

I am surprised that nobody else has reported this. I tried hard to see if I
was duplicating another bug report, but could not find it.

So maybe it's my fault and I am doing something silly.
If so I apologise for wasting time.

(PS I am an enthusiastic supporter of mozilla,and frequently recommend it to
others, but can't help with programming. Sorry)

Comment 1

[Pratik]

Are you using POP3 or IMAP? If you're using POP3 try doing a Compact Folders.
That should remove the deleted messages. If you're using IMAP and downloading
message for offline use, then yes this is a bug and IIRC its a known bug.

Comment 2

[Aaron Sloman]

> Comment From Pratik
> Are you using POP3 or IMAP? 

POP3

> If you're using POP3 try doing a Compact Folders.
> That should remove the deleted messages.

I went to the 'Offline & disk space' panel in the preferences window.

The 'compact' folders option was turned off, so now I have turned it on, and 
when I left the preferences panel, mozilla immediately asked me if I wanted
folders compacted. I said yes and it removed some old files.
Thank you.

I must have turned it off because I did not realise that the option description
   Compact folders when it will save over xx KB

simply meant 'get rid of already deleted files'. I assumed it meant something
like 'get rid of old messages in order to save space.'

Thats because I had no idea the deleted messages were just left there.

The help file entry is no clearer: it says:
  Disk Space: Select this to conserve disk space by automatically
  compacting message folders when it will save the amount of disk space
  you enter.

The help file entry should read something like this:

  Disk Space: Select this to conserve disk space by automatically
  removing from the message folder the messages that you
  have deleted. Until the file is compacted the deleted messages remain in
  the folder and can be read with an editor.

Likewise, perhaps the panel description (in the preferences panel) should be
altered to something like:

  Compact folders (by removing files already 'deleted'), if compacting will
   save over [   ] KB

That makes it clear what compacting means.

Thanks.
Aaron

Comment 3

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

You can either do that automaticaly (prefs) or via File/Compact folders.

Mozilla doesn't delete a mail if you delete it in the Front-end. The mail will
only marked as deleted.

The reason : 
You have (for example) a Inbox with 100MB mails. You delete one mail.
Mozilla must reqrite the whole 100MB file (which would be very slow) if it
really should delete the mail. 

compacting the folder does this : It rewrites the mail-file for the folder
without all "marked as deleted" messages

-> invalid (no bug)

Comment 4

[Aaron Sloman]

In response to comment #3

I accept the point, especially on slow machines or slow networked file
systems.

So I now think the bug is not in the mechanism, but in how the mechanism is
presented to the users.

That should be much easier to change. I suspect there are many users who are
unaware that their message folders are getting bigger and bigger all the time as
I was until I started backing up my .mozilla directory (after having three
hard drives crash in six months), and then finding that the tar file kept
getting bigger for no apparent reason.

Perhaps in addition to having different text on the preferences panel
describing the compaction option it would be useful for mozilla mail
to check the sizes of mail folders on startup and if any of them is
above, say 100 kb, produce a panel stating something like:

your XXX mail folder has size NNN Kb. Would you like it to be
compacted by removing 'deleted' messages?  Y/N

Please always ask when a message folder reaches size NNN Kb

Please never ask again Y/N

I realise that this would require extra work. The minimal change should be to
alter the text on the preferences menu.

I don't know the etiquette here: should I start a new bug report about
the text on the menu, or just leave this here?

Thanks
Aaron
www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs