Icedove wants to delete messages that I've been archiving and placing in subfolders
Starting with sixteen thousand messages in my inbox, I've been archiving the
spam and placing about fifteen thousand in various subfolders of my Icedove file.
Every so often a popup message appears (screenshot attached) that wants to save
space by putting the messages that I've deleted (none) in the Trash.
I'm used to messages suggesting that I compact various folders, but these "delete"
messages scare me; I do not want Icedove to delete hundreds of megabytes of data
that I've categorized to make it easier to locate.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Screenshot at 2021-09-06 12-27-51.png | 21.62 KB |
Edit: Make that "purge" ... even more threatening than delete.
"What compact does not do
Compact (purge) is a maintenance process, so it:
does not delete messages from folders
does not remove messages from trash or spam folders
does not compress folders by using compression algorithms such as zip
You may be concerned that the compact prompt sometimes appears just when you have deleted a message, or when you have started Thunderbird. This is expected behavior and is not cause for concern, because compact does not delete your messages. "
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/compacting-folders
Looks like it's possible to turn off?
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1225337
"Purge" in Icedove has an entirely different meaning than the same verb in Mate Terminal,
where there is a gradation from "uninstall" to "remove" to "slash; burn, collect the ashes
and send the ashes to outer space," i.e., "Purge."
"Compact folder[s]" was a term that I thought meant that empty disk space was to be retrieved
by placing emails in some order such as "head-to-tail" without gaps caused by previous moves
from one storage location to a subsidiary folder in another location. In a pre-computer
summer job I was instructed to do such a thing with randomly filed job orders in a four drawer
standalone file cabinet, which I proceeded to do in order of the date written, with the most
recent at the beginning (front) of each folder; took about a day.
In Icedove these settings are in an entirely different place:
Edit > Preferences, then scroll down to > Network & Disk Space, then scroll down to > Disk
Space, where you can uncheck "Compact all folders when it will save [ I entered 2 TB ]"
Wait ! There's more: at the lower right, below what you just saw, is > Config editor >
search the extremely long list that appears after you accept all risk > "purge" whereupon
the following list appears:
mail.prompt_purge_threshhold;false ... was true
mail.purge.ask;false ....................... was true
mail.purge.min_delay;480 ................... Is that minimum or minutes ?
mail.purge.timer_interval;5 ................ Seconds ? Minutes ? How many ?
mail.purge_threshhold_mb;2000000 ........... was 200 (I reset the threshold to an impossible level)
mail.purge_threshold_migrated;false ........ was true (ambiguous terminology)
There's more, equally ambiguous terminology:
mail.server.default.purgeSpam;false ......... My ISP is hypervigilant; often incorrect
mail.server.default.purgeSpamInterval;14 .......... Seconds ? Minutes ? Hours ? Days ?
privacy.purge_trackers.date_in_cookie_database;0 .. Days ? Day of week ? Calendar date ?
privacy.purge_trackers.enabled;false .............. Let the trackers do their thing ?
privacy.purge_trackers.logging.level;Error ........ Log the trackers when they fail to track ?
privacy.purge_trackers.max_purge_count;100 ........ Count from the latest or from the earliest ?
Continuing, then noticing the term, "bookmarks":
browser.bookmarks.max_backups;5 ............. Found fifteen, ca. 20kB each (I expected megabytes)
places.frecency.bookmarkVisitBonus;75 ...... Tribune spelling ? Ought to be "frequency." Relic of DOS ?
places.frecency.unvisitedBookmarkBonus;140 ... "Bonus" has the connotation of a commercial term.
Do these ambiguous terms affect Abrowser's practice of making my bookmarks impossible to retrieve ?
> the same verb in Mate Terminal, where there is a gradation from "uninstall" to "remove" to "slash; burn, collect the ashes and send the ashes to outer space," i.e., "Purge."
Note that the "purge" command does not send any of your personal files (i.e. files in your personal user directory, aka "/home") into interstellar oblivion, including those that might have been created or accessed using the purged package.
> making my bookmarks impossible to retrieve
See this Mozilla support question. A "bonus" is attributed to matching bookmarks, as opposed to history, in the location bar, and you can modify that value. It appears you might also be able to manually influence that behavior while typing, as mentioned here in the Firefox knowledge base.