Confusion? Guilty... and thanks for the detailed explanation...
However that still leaves me with the question: how do I "burp" this baby?
An added complication may be that Blackberry polls the imap server for
my messages periodically so the file may be periodically open by other
processes.
I can check with ps and when there are no "imapd" processes running for
this user (I can kill any other running imapds) I can attempt to reclaim
the space.
However, I don't see a mailutil option for burp... and I want to delete
all previously deleted mail regardless of what folder they are in.
Thanks
Mark Crispin wrote:
Your message indicates confusion on multiple points. The following
information ought to clear up your confusion AND answer your questions:
[1] There are three separate operations associated with the removal of
a message:
[a] Marking a message as deleted ("deleting")
[b] Removing deleted messages ("expunging").
[c] Reclaiming the space occupied by expunged messages ("burping").
[2] The [1a] step is reversible; the deleted mark can be cleared and
the message is no longer deleted ("undeleting").
[3] The [1b] step is irreversible by mere mortals (wizards may be able
to use black magic at the cost of damning their souls). The [1b] step
also attempts to perform the [1c] step automatically.
[4] The [1c] step is irreversible. A burp will happen only if this
session has exclusive access to the mailbox. If any other session has
the mailbox open, the burp will not happen.
[5] Re-read [4]. It answers many of your questions.
[6] The "mailutil prune" command accepts IMAP2 style search criteria.
\Deleted is not an IMAP2 style search criterion, although DELETED is.
[7] Some shells interpret "\" as a "quote-next character" operator.
[8] The command
mailutil prune -u haral INBOX \Deleted
is an invalid command. It may coincidentally do the same thing as
mailutil prune -u haral INBOX deleted
does, depending upon the shell that invoked it. Re-read [6] and [7]
if you do not understand the reason why.
[9] [a] There is no such thing as a "Deleted folder" in IMAP.
[b] A mailbox by the name of Deleted has no special meaning in IMAP.
[c] A mailbox by the name of Deleted has no relationship to the
mechanism of message removal discussed in [1].
[c] A mailbox by the name of Deleted has no relationship to the
operation of the "mailutil prune" command
[d] The commands:
mailutil prune -u haral INBOX deleted
mailutil prune -u haral INBOX "before 1-jan-2007"
do not in any way operate on a mailbox named Deleted (or for that
matter any mailbox other than the INBOX mailbox).
[10] The command
mailutil prune -u haral INBOX deleted
does not do what you think it does. It deletes the messages that are
already deleted (hence meaningless). It then attempts an expunge and
a burp.
[11] Presumably, when you refer to "old, invisible" messages, you are
referring to non-burped messages. Re-read everything that I wrote
above, especially [4].
On Mon, 16 Feb 2009, Haral Tsitsivas wrote:
How do I expunge old deleted email? It seems that the mailbox grows
and grows but it no longer contracts (it did so at the beginning, but
now the file size is near 300MB and it never contracts).
I am running imap-2007e on Solaris 2.8, and users are using
Thunderbird on Windows XP and Vista PCs.
When I attempt to expunge using prune, only the current items in the
Deleted folder get removed, not the old, invisible mail messages:
$ mailutil prune -u haral INBOX \Deleted
3 message(s) purged
$ mailutil prune -u haral INBOX "before 1-jan-2007"
No matching messages, so nothing purged
-- Mark --
http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
--
--Haral
_______________________________________________
Imap-uw mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/imap-uw
