User talk:Rtanglao/DRAFT-Compacting-article: Difference between revisions

To compact a folder, Thunderbird opens your existing folder (say inbox.) Based on the rules for the MBOX mail format it reads the file one message at a time. If the message is still current it writes to to a new file, if it is marked as deleted it skips that message and moves onto the next message. This process is repeated one message at a time until the end of the file is reached. Then and only then the original message storage file is deleted and the new one replaces it. This is followed by the generation of an index for this message file. As many of the messages in the file have moved location, the original index is must be replaced .

If for some reason this process is interrupted, Thunderbird will add the original file to the list of folders under local folder as a folder named NSTMP (if there is already one there a sequential number is added. So NSTMP1,NSTMP2 etc could occur)