Re: [Evolution] How to compact empty mailboxes?

[Jim Bowen <jbowen speakeasy net>]

Michael -

I'm not an expert on this but here is what I have figured out in
relation to similar issues on my side ...

There seem to be three major files for each mailbox folder that consume
large amounts of space when there are lots of messages:

  mbox - the actual messages
  mbox.ev-summary - parsed data for summary display (subj, to/from,
date, etc..)
  mbox.ibex - content indexing for searching

To clear the most disk space you need to :

1. Make sure you either "Expunge" or "Empty Trash" to _REALLY_ delete
the messages (if you ave hide deleted messages enabled for the folder
they will still be there until expunged or the trash -- which actually
is a vFolder -- is emptied. This will clear out both mbox and
mbox.ev-summary of any expunged messages.

2. Eliminate any data from expunged messages from the ibex file by:
  a. Choosing File->Folder->Properties and deselecting "index contents"
     (this will delete the .ibex file)
  b. Repeat a and _select_ index contents to rebuild a new .ibex file

Perhaps there is a trigger that will automatically recreate an ibex file
(on boot-up or after a certain time or after a message is added) but I
don't know. The above steps do work for me.

Hope this helps.

Jim




On Thu, 2002-03-21 at 22:57, Michael D. Crawford wrote:
> I subscribe to a lot of mailing lists (and now this one :-) ) and have my 
> messages sorted into folders, one for each list.  These are physical folders, 
> not vFolders.
>
> Periodically I delete all the mail from most of the mailing list folders, 
> because I can read the mail from the archives, and I want to save space.
>
> But the amount of disk space used by a folder does not always shrink, or 
> sometimes it only shrinks a little.
>
> I deleted almost all of my mail today, and only saved a few megabytes.  One 
> folder with no messages in it takes up 22 megabytes in the filesystem, and the 
> whole size of my ~/evolution directory heirarchy is nearly a quarter gigabyte!
>
> My Linux installation is on a small hard drive, so I need to be conservative 
> about my disk space usage.  Is there a way I can compact the unused space out of 
> the folders?
>
> I'm using evolution 1.0.2 on a Debian PowerPC installation (sid) on a Mac 8500 
> with a PowerLogix G4 CPU upgrade.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Mike
> -- 
> Michael D. Crawford
> GoingWare Inc. - Expert Software Development and Consulting
> http://www.goingware.com/
> crawford goingware com
>
>       Tilting at Windmills for a Better Tomorrow.
>
>
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