Join the Mozilla’s Test Days event from Dec 2–8 to test the new Firefox address bar on Firefox Beta 134 and get a chance to win Mozilla swag vouchers! 🎁

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

exceeding quota

  • 29 cavab
  • 6 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Fabian

more options

Dear Thunderbird community,

I am using a gmail account with Thunderbird. My quota on the gmail imap server is 95%, and I urgently need to free space.

However, I can't understand why is it so. When I receive the mail, I regularly download the mails to Local Folders, leaving only a few emails in the Gmail Inbox and Outbox. The same few emails are also visible from the Gmail account when I access it online ... so why the quota is so high?

In the folder properties (imap://gianluca.polgar%40gmail.com@imap.googlemail.com/INBOX), it says that there are only 79 messages (21.4 MB on disk).

How can I free space from the imap server, and at the same time keep all the emails in the local folders (that is, in my computer)? How should I set my gmail account settings, in order to do so?

Thank you so much for your help.

Gianluca

Dear Thunderbird community, I am using a gmail account with Thunderbird. My quota on the gmail imap server is 95%, and I urgently need to free space. However, I can't understand why is it so. When I receive the mail, I regularly download the mails to Local Folders, leaving only a few emails in the Gmail Inbox and Outbox. The same few emails are also visible from the Gmail account when I access it online ... so why the quota is so high? In the folder properties (imap://gianluca.polgar%40gmail.com@imap.googlemail.com/INBOX), it says that there are only 79 messages (21.4 MB on disk). How can I free space from the imap server, and at the same time keep all the emails in the local folders (that is, in my computer)? How should I set my gmail account settings, in order to do so? Thank you so much for your help. Gianluca

Chosen solution

Offline because even if it's quick, there should be no interference from server downloads. If you go offline before you exit you should start offline next time. That remindes me I didn't tell you to go online when all was done. The .msf is just an index of your mbox (the file without an extension). It holds tags thou. My thought was this doubling could be an index-fault.

I tested ImportExportTool by exporting directly from "local folders" with all subfolders and keeping structure. Then I made a new folder within local folders, right-clicked on it and imported mbox (with subdirectories) marked all files without extensions (.sbd-directories will follow) and executed. A perfect copy of local appeared.

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (20)

more options

If you do not Compact your folders you have not freed up any space. Compact is Thunderbird's poorly named term for complete removal of deleted files. Read about it here.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_Tips_:_Compacting_Folders

more options

nope.. I regularly compact the folders. This does not solve my problem.

G

more options

Google drive and mail share quota... got a music or Video collection filling the space perhaps.

more options

This is exactly the point... why do they keep on sharing the quota if I move all the mail in the local folders?

How can I make them stop sharing the quota, without losing any mail?

G

more options

How big is the 'All Mail' folder in webmail account? This is gmail archive folder, it keeps a record of everything. If you have an email in any folder, it will have a copy in 'All Mail'. If you delete anything from 'All Mail' folder then it will get deleted from all other folders that contain a copy/label. Read some info : If you delete a message from your inbox or one of your custom folders in your IMAP client, it will still appear in [Gmail]/All Mail. https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6581?hl=en https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78755?hl=en

How many emails are in your 'Sent' folder becaue the 'All Mail' will also have a copy of those as well ?

Modified by Toad-Hall

more options

wow! the all mail folder includes 20,000 emails, although the sent and inbox folders only contain a few emails !!

So this is what happened! Even if I copied all the mail in my local folders in Thunderbird, all the emails are still there in the imap folder!

Can I safely delete them from gmail? Will the copies saved with Thunderbird in my local folders be safe? Should I set my synchronization settings in any particular way to prevent any loss from my Thunderbird local folders?

Please let me know!!!

Thank you so much for your help :-)

G

more options

Emails stored in Thunderbird Local Folders are not connected to the IMAP server, so should not be effected by anything you do on the rserver or IMAP mail account.

You should however, backup those emails to an external drive as they will be the only copy once you have deleted emails from 'All Mail'.

You could use an addon tool called ImportExportTool

download the .xpi fie to desktop or downloads folder. In Thunderbird Tools > Addons or Menu icon > Addons click on gear wheel icon and select : Install addon from file' locate the file you downloaded and click on Open You will need to restart Thunderbird.

Right click on 'local Folders' or any folder within Local Folders and select 'ImportExporttool' - there are various export options. see example image below.

more options

ok I downloaded and installed the ImportExportTool. I am now quite puzzled about the many ways of making the backup...

If I select the whole Local Folders and choose the "Export to folder" option (with subfolders) it takes ages ... and a lot of the files created are apparently empty (0 bites). I also often get messages about a script which stopped working, therefore I think this is not a good option. Maybe the folders are so big that the software gets stuck. If I do it for one subfolder at a time, it seems to work...

On the other hand, if I choose the option "export all messages in the folder" it takes a huge amount of time even for a very small subfolder...

So I am now trying to do one folder at a time.. but even in this case, I don't know what option I should use.

I need to save both text and attachments in a way that the folder where I export the mail can be archived in an external disk, and the whole content imported in a new installation of Thunderbird, if the system crashes... What is the best option?

cheers, Gianluca

more options

That doesn't sound right? How big is your local folders? Did you compact those as well? Lots of attachments?

You could use Mozbackup (which 'zips' your entire profile) just to be safe.

more options

I routinely compact everything. The local folders is very big... can't answer right now, since it is exporting it :-)

Where can I find this Mozbackup? Is it another tool that can be downloaded?

BTW, I noticed that I receive an error msg on the script EACH and every time I run the tool "export folder with structure", irrespective of the size of the folder. The msg pops up at the end of the procedure, but the process is apparently complete (i.e. all the messages seem to appear in the backup, either as eml files, or as files with no extension that can be opened with a text editor).

more options

Now I understand why it takes time. You are exporting as .eml That takes time. You just want to safe keep them. Use export folders with subfolders. That copies your mboxes.

MozBackup: how to at http://kb.mozillazine.org/MozBackup and download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mozbackup/

Modified by Gnospen

more options

if I use the command export folder with subfolders (with structure), two different things will happen:

1. the folder has no subfolder -> in this case, only one file with no extension and the same name of the folder is created. If opened with a text editor, all the messages are inside, including lines for the headers, etc., in what it seems to be HTML language

2. the folder has subfolders -> in this case, both a folder with the extension ".sbd", and a file with the same name are created in the same position; this latter file is empty. Inside the folder, there are other folders, with the same name of the mail subfolders, with the extension "mozmsgs". Inside these ones, there are the wdseml files. Each eml file correspond to a single message.

more options

sorry I made a mistake.

If there are no subfolders in the original mail folder, the command "export folder with subfolder with subfolders (with structure)" is not available.

Only the "export folder" command is.

more options

re: Where can I find this Mozbackup? Is it another tool that can be downloaded?

MozBackup is good tool for backing up an entire Profile. This is the website.

The link above has more info, the link below takes you directly to 'download page - also accessible via website link above.

Other MozBackup info:

more options

right, but if you instead choose local folder there will be plenty

But first open tools/importexporttools/options /exportdirectories and choose a new place for mbox

Modified by Gnospen

more options

Helpful hint: Generally, most emails are only a few kb in size. However, attachments can increase the size of an email to several Mb.

If you right click on attachment and select 'detach', you can save the attachment to a location; another folder outside of Thunderbird. You can still click on the attachment in the email to open the saved attachment as a link replaces the actual attachment.

What does this mean? The size of your email is reduced significantly, so making space in the folder/mbox file and reducing size of Profile. This makes backups of emails and folders quicker. You can then also backup the folder containing attachments separately. If the folder containing emails gets corrupted or lost, you will not lose the attachment; which quite often may be more important than the actual email.

more options

i don't know why, but now I have a lot of duplicate emails in the local folders, and the software is AWFULLY slow as I try to delete the duplicates!!

How can I do???

more options

Set TB to run offline (File/Work Offline) exit TB

For safety, just copy all of your profile somewhere. not the best way to do it but anyway you have a copy.

If your brave enough.... In your "profile-folder" / mail / local folders delete all *.msf TB will rebuild them. start TB Do you still have duplicates? compact all folders (file / compact folders)

more options

going offline doesn't help... why did you add: "exit TB"?

... and no, I'm not brave enough :-)

G

more options

I have roughly 20,000 emails in the all mail gmail folder... does anyone know how I can delete a certain interval, e.g. from 15,000 to 20,000, instead of deleting page after page (100 emails at a time)?

  1. 1
  2. 2