Problem

I use Thunderbird and my D-ITET Account runs out of quota, but I have no data stored at all. What is the space eater?

Solution

You have probably activated the synchronisation in Thunderbird. This Feature creates a local copy of every mail in your imap account. This feature can be used, when working with a self managed laptop which is not always online. In this offline mode you will access the emails through this offline stored data.

In most cases you do not need this files, so you should delete them and free up your disk space.

Thunderbird Settings

Attention The following steps have to be done for every Mail account configured in Thunderbird.

1. Open Thunderbird and select on the left-side column the desired account (e.g. in this example maegger@ee.ethz.ch).

2. Right click on it and choose settings.

3. Choose Synchronization & Storage on the left-side column underneath the account (Point 1 in Screenshot).

1. Uncheck the option Keep messages for this account on this computer (Point 2 in the above Screenshot)

2. Click the button Advanced in the same Window. (Point 3 in the above Screenshot)

3. A new pop-up Window will appear, showing all available folder for all accounts. There, uncheck all checkboxes and click ok.

1. Back in the original Window (note the unseleced Keep messages for this account setting) configure the option Synchronize the most recent to 1 Days

1. Click the OK button.

2. Close Thunderbird if this was the last account otherwise start over with step 1 for the next account.

Continue with the description for your operating system to finalize the configuration.

Removing sychronized mails in Windows

1. Close Thunderbird

2. Remove your local ImapMail folder:

   • Click on Start -> Computer

   • Change to C:\Users\<YOUR USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<RANDOM NAME>.default\ and delete the folder ImapMail.

3. Restart thunderbird (the ImapMail folder will be created again, but with less data)

Removing sychronized mails in Linux

1. Close Thunderbird
2. Open a Terminal and change to the Synchronisation directory.

   •   cd ~/.thunderbird/<RANDOM NAME>.default/

3. Remove the ImapMail folder

   •   $ rm -rf ImapMail

4. Restart thunderbird (the ImapMail folder will be created again, but with less data)

CategoryMAIL