Re: [Evolution] Identifying and clearing redundant data/files

[Steve T <stevetucknott yahoo co uk>]

Patrick,

I did just that. After seeing where the spaces was taken up, I did:

• Did a send/receive
• Stopped evolution
• rsync'd the .evolution folder to an archive
• Removed all mails from the pop servers that had been 'fetched'
• Removed the 'pop' /cache/ entries (the files in the 01,1a...3f folders)
• Restarted Evolution

It started ok and all looks fine - I've been running for about 2 hours and have received a dozen or so mails no problem. The clear out has saved circa 2.5GB -  a huge amount...but obviously that has built up over the years (I've always had 'leave messages on server' set - so presumably it couldn't clear cache (I assume it uses the cache to know which messages on the server it has already fetched)).

I've got a simple script to clear the files now...! I was a bit paranoid about running it and I must admit I'm still not sure as to the relevance of the uid-cache file sitting in the pop directories. I was a bit scared that the entries in there linked to the physical cache and that it was all going to blow up after I cleared the cache files. But not so far. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for all your help and input.....

PS Presumably as your cache is being cleared after a week - you then got the option set to delete messages on the server after 7 days? That would then tie up with how I think it works.


On Tue, 2008-04-08 at 10:57 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-04-08 at 13:59 +0100, Steve T wrote:
> > Patrick,
> > Yes, I clear the Trash every day.
> > 
> > I think I can see what the problem is and where the space is being
> > taken up.
> > I have my pop3 set so that the messages are left on the server.
> > Periodically, I go to the pop3 server(s) and manually delete the
> > messages that i know I have read and have in Evolution (I tend to do
> > this so I always have my mail on an available web based server, in
> > case I'm ever out without my laptop).
> > 
> > Would I be right in assuming that Evolution then cache's the messages
> > from the various servers - so it knows what has already been
> > retrieved? If that is the case then that would seem to leave the
> > messages in cache, even after I delete them from the server and from
> > Evolution itself.
>
> It appears so, at least I still have cache copies of POP messages after
> emptying Trash. However they only go back a few weeks, so it looks like
> Evo is cleaning them out periodically. I have absolutely no idea how it
> decides to do this -- I haven't touched any relevant preferences.
>
> For IMAP, it seems to cache only header info.
>
> > My flow is: 
> >       * Get mail from Server 
> >       * Cache mail to say retrieved 
> >       * Post to VFolders inside Evolution 
> >       * At some point I delete the mail from the Server 
> >       * At some other point I delete the mail from Evolution (and
> >         clear trash!) 
> >       * But does this then leave a copy in cache?
> > If that is the case, how can I go about clearing 'dead' messages from
> > cache? My first thoughts were to get all the messages from the servers
> > and delete  them from the Servers - then delete all the cache entries
> > from evolution. Is that sensible and will that cause me more issues?
>
> rm -rf ~/.evolution/mail/pop/<account>/cache/*
>
> should work (even without fetching everything again). I mean, it's a
> cache, right? (If you're nervous, first move the cache directory aside,
> e.g. "mv cache cache-save", and check that everything still works.)
>
> You could presumably put it in a crontab entry to execute once a week or
> whatever.
>
> poc