I apologize, but I don't know what it means to not have any emails on the server. Is the server the "thing" from which I access my email on the web, or is it the "thing" that holds the email in the Inbox folder in TB.

What I want is what I had prior to this mess. Namely, when I open TB I want all the emails that I have not deleted or moved to an archive local folder to be in the Inbox. Namely, I want deleted emails to be deleted from the TB Inbox and emails move to a local folder to be only in that local folder.

Will you latest instruction result in what I had before and what I want again?

When people send you emails they are received by the yahoo verizon server and you can logon to the yahoo verizon webmail account using a browser to see them.

So what you see when you logon to the webmail account is exactly what is currently held on the server.

In Thunderbird you have a pop mail account. Pop mail accounts get access to the server Inbox and can download emails from the server Inbox into the pop mail account Inbox.

The default setting with pop mail accounts, is to download the emails to pop mail account and remove them off the server. So webmail would only show anything new and as yet not downloaded.

This default setting can be changed by selecting 'Leave messages on server' in the pop mail account settings. This means you can download emails from server Inbox and still leave a copy on the server. So in this case when you logon to webmail account you will see a copy of emails you downloaded to Thunderbird.

In the Thunderbird pop mail account, the 'popstate.dat' file keeps a record of what was downloaded. Each email has a unique UIDL reference. So next time it accesses server to check for new mail, it will know not to download that email again.

If you select the additional option: 'Until I delete them': When you delete an email and folder is compacted that email is gone from the pop mail account, the next connection to server instructs to delete those emails off server and the popstate.dat file gets updated to remove deleted items.

However, the yahoo verizon server is not repecting the 'delete' instruction, so emails are not being deleted off server. Some people report they have only been experiencing this issue since verizon account migrated to yahoo or aol. But there are several verizon people experiencing this kind of issue.

As thunderbird pop mail account 'popstate.dat' file did remove the 'deleted' items from it's file, upon accessing server those previously downloaded emails now look like they are new because server has not deleted them. Hence they get downloaded again - very frustrating to say the least.

So I was asking : Do you really need the copies on the server which you view via the webmail account? If yes: In Thunderbird, pop mail account settings, uncheck 'Until I delete them'. As server is not behaving as expected, there is no point in sending the instruction. This means the popstate.dat file should retain the UIDL info and not download again.

If no: in Thunderbird pop mail account settings, uncheck 'Leave messages on server'. Go through the delete process again and click on 'Get Messages'. This time everything will get downloaded, but it should force the default action on server to actually delete all those emails off the server at the time of downloading.

If you decide you want to keep copies on the server, you will need to access the webmail account every so often to manually delete all the oldest or unwanted emails in order to ensure you do not use up the quota allowance.

Personally, I would not keep emails on server. You are downloading a full copy into the Pop maila ccount. But I would make a backup of your Thunderbird profile folder every so often, just to make sure you have more than one copy.

When creating a backup, exit Thunderbird first then make a copy of the 'Thunderbird' folder in this location.

• C:\Users\<Windows user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\

Again, I want to thank you for your expertise and, in my case, your understanding and patience. I will reread your last two responses carefully and apply your instructions. Because of a commitment I can't do it now; I will get back to you with the result in about 3-4 hours.

I took your advice and I unchecked "Leave messages on server." I deleted all the pre 2020 messages in TB. Now, my TB Inbox has only the emails I did NOT delete (this makes me happy). However, I immediately opened my mail from the web, and, as expected, my web Inbox is empty.

I'm not sure I'm happy with this. I will never be able access my mail when I'm not at my home computer unless the said computer has loaded TB. This does not seem practical.

What happened to change what I had for 10 years?

I don't understand why my web Inbox is empty.

I asked you this question: Do you really need the copies on the server which you view via the webmail account?

I told you what to do based on whether you wanted to keep them on the server or not.

If yes, you do want to keep storing emails on the server so you can see them via webmail In Thunderbird, pop mail account settings, uncheck 'Until I delete them'. As server is not behaving as expected, there is no point in sending the instruction. This means the popstate.dat file should retain the UIDL info and not download again.

If no, you decided you do not need to keep copies of downloaded emails on the server: in Thunderbird pop mail account settings, uncheck 'Leave messages on server'. Go through the delete process again and click on 'Get Messages'. This time everything will get downloaded, but it should force the default action on server to actually delete all those emails off the server at the time of downloading.

Your reponse: I will reread your last two responses carefully and apply your instructions. I took your advice and I unchecked "Leave messages on server." Now, my TB Inbox has only the emails I did NOT delete (this makes me happy). However, I immediately opened my mail from the web, and, as expected, my web Inbox is empty.

So you decided you did not need downloaded emails being kept on the server and applied the appropriate action and got the expected result. Now when you have new mail arrive on server and you download that email into Thunderbird pop account Inbox, it uses the default action and auto deletes the copy on the server.

Then you say I don't understand why my web Inbox is empty. It is empty because you decided you did not want to store downloaded emails on the server. So you set up the default action of a pop account to allow download and then delete the copy off the server.

I suggest you read the information I posted in previous comments because I have already fully explained everything.

What happened to change what I had for 10 years? You had a verizon account and recently everything was changed by Verizon. I believe some people swapped to aol and other people view via yahoo. In your case, the yahoo verizon server was ignoring requests to delete single emails and ignoring requests to delete everything older than xx days, so keeping everything on server. The 'popstate.dat' file in Thunderbird pop account did not expect the server to ignore the delete request, so popstate had no knowledge that the server had not deleted those emails and no record that it had ever downloaded them, hence they got downloaded again.

Do this: Logon to webmail account and make sure there is nothing in the server Spam or Trash folders (Those folders might be called 'Deleted Items' or 'Spam Items') , check everything to make sure you do not have any emails lurking in any folders. Do not worry about the Inbox as Thunderbird can access them.

Now that the server has been 'flushed out' and performed what all servers deem as the default action for a pop account, I was going to suggest you reset up everything as before and see if the server starts to behave.

So: In pop mail account:

• Select: 'Leave message on server'
• Select 'Until I delete them'
• Click on OK

Restart Thunderbird.

It is possible all the issues started when you previously got this error message from the server: "The POP3 mail server (incoming.yahoo.verizon.net) does not support UIDL or XTND XLST, which are required to implement the ``Leave on Server, ``Maximum Message Size or ``Fetch Headers Only options. To download your mail, turn off these options in the Server Settings for your mail server in the Account Settings window."

However, the server had started to accept leaving on server, but now it would not allow individual deletes.

You have now cleaned out the server. Reset everything back to as it were before, then see if the problem persists. Obviously, there are no large numbers of emails on the server, so you would not get the massive download.

Any emails you see in the Thunderbird Inbox for pop account which you need to see on server when you access via webmail, such as emails received this month: Forward those emails to yourself to get them back on server. yes they will be shown as forwarded to you, but at least you will be able to read the contents via webmail account.

Toad-Hall,

Thanks for the ongoing assistance.

This morning I opened TB, all was well. Only the new messages I received last night downloaded and no deleted messages. The TB Inbox holds only the emails I've never deleted (these are from 2020 -- I moved all other emails to archive local folders and moved those folders to a different location on the hard drive.)

I then opened up my account in the web. The Inbox, as expected was empty. The UNREAD folder, however had over 4000 emails all of which had been either read, deleted or moved in TB. (In case you are unfamiliar with the Yahoo web format, I've attached a screen dump.) Could this folder be contributing to the problem that prompted my seeking help? Regardless, I deleted all 4000+of them. I also deleted the emails in all folders except for the SENT folder. I then emptied TRASH.

I then exited TB. I reloaded TB.

I believe that, at last, ALL IS WELL. THANK YOU

However, I have another problem with TB on a different computer, but with one of my gmail accounts. The password that works for the web gmail does not work with TB. Should I start a new question/post or what we continue here?

re:The UNREAD folder on webmail account: Do you have a filter set up in webmail account that auto puts a copy of unread mail into the 'Unread' folder. Worth checking.

re: The password that works for the web gmail does not work with TB. Should I start a new question/post or what we continue here? Please start a new question and include info on whether this is a gmail pop or imap account.

Toad-Hall,

This will be my last reply on this post. Again I want to thank you for everything.

Take care and be safe,

Jim