Description of problem: Retention policy doesn't work on thunderbird Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): every version,from 1.5.0.12-17.el4 to 2.0.0.16-1.fc9 How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: 1.Choose Trash by click on it 2.Go to Edit->Folder Properties 3.In the popup window, click tab "Retention Policy" 4.Check option "Delete all but the last $NUMBER messages", set $NUMBER to 2. 5.Click "OK" Actual results: The message can't be deleted in the trash Expected results: The message should can be deleted in the trash Additional info: This problem happens when incoming server is set as IMAP mail server,pop3 is ok.
You have to run File/Compact Folders to make the policy active for the first time. NOTABUG
Thank you Matej Cepl.I have tried as you tell.But I find one issue:to make the policy active, every time I need to compact Folders,not just for the first time.
I chose "File->Compact Folders" in 2.0.0.21 and it does not seem to work, however if I right click directly on the folder with a retention policy and choose the "Compact" option, it causes the folder to flush mail older than the retention timeframe. I'm not sure if thunderbird will auto-flush mail in that folder afterward or not, or if you have to constantly manually choose "compact". What is odd is that I have thunderbird also configured to automatically compact mailboxes if 10000 bytes would be saved and that feature does not cause the mail to be flushed either. Personally, I still consider this a bug because the majority of users who choose to set a retention policy of n days are neither informed that, nor are they likely to guess that they have to perform another action like "compact". So if it isn't considered a bug per se. then it definitely is a design flaw. Having said that, it probably belongs in the upstream bugzilla I guess. Hopefully thunderbird 3 has a more intuitive design that works like one would expect. :)
Well, I think there is something that is not working properly here. If I can accept to manually compact the folder in order to have my retention policy applied, I can accept the random deletion of my emails. I have a IMAP account and my "Sent" folder retention policy says: "Delete all but the last 4920 messages". The folder is sort by ascending date, so the oldest mail should be the first to be deleted, but when I compact this folder, the email deleted is someone in the middle of my list. Why? Is it a bug? In my other POP account, everything perfectly works (to run the retention policy, I just have to jump over the folders, without compacting the folder). What can I do? I'm using 2.0.0.23 TB, but even in TB3 there is this bug. Thanks, M