October 24, 2018

stop Thunderbird's nagging messages about compacting folders

Sometime in middle to late 2018 I began getting messages once or twice a week about compacting my folders. Why it doesn't just do this automatically when I am not trying to use Thunderbird I will never know, but this is how it is. I can do this by hand when I feel like it (likely to be never), but whatever the case, I hate this thing popping up when I am trying to read my mail.

Almost all the tutorials describing how to do this describe obsolete menu arrangements that do not correspond to the Thunderbird I run 

Click on "hamburger" icon to get a menu.
Click on "preferences" to get that menu.
Select advanced on the top right
Select Network and Disk Space tab
Uncheck the "compact when it will save xxx"
The Thunderbird dorks will scold you for doing this. They say that "compacting" is part of regular Thunderbird Hygiene. I say that if so, it should be automated. Or there should at least be an option to automate it.

What compacting does, as far as they have managed to explain it, is to delete already deleted mails (i.e. "empty the trash"). I does not compress anything, it just gets rid of dead wood. They warn you that Thunderbird is buggy and may loose mail if this is not done on a semi-regular basis.

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Adventures in Computing / tom@mmto.org