On 7/27/14 6:31 PM, Daniel wrote:
On 26/07/14 23:33, Trane Francks wrote:
On 7/26/14 9:32 PM, Daniel wrote:

<Snip>

Ahh!! So your "Expunge on exit" might go closer to "Compact on exit"
which is a feature that, I think, should be available for pop accounts,
but isn't!!

I don't think so, Daniel. 'Cleanup ("Expunge") Inbox on Exit' does
exactly what its meaning would indicate: Expunging causes messages
marked for deletion to be physically removed. The issue here is to note
that POP3 servers and IMAP servers operate rather differently. On an
IMAP server, /deleting/ a message only marks the message for _later_
deletion. With an IMAP account, when you delete your message in your
mail application, it's sending a message to the server to mark that
message for removal. It isn't done immediately, however; the actual
'real' delete only happens with expunging.

Compacting just happens to _also_ trigger expunging on IMAP servers
because cleanup is the first step in compacting. One can delete messages
without compacting, but one cannot compact without deleting messages
(that have been marked for deletion). Compacting and expunging are not
at all the same thing, although they are somewhat related.

I'm saying, on POP, deleting a message does not actually delete it, it's
just marked for deletion. It *is* actually deleted when the account
folderes are Compacted.

I doubt it; otherwise, POP3 would have the Expunge setting, too. As such, leaving messages on the POP3 server until they're deleted works exactly as it sounds. As soon as you delete the message in your mail client, it will silently disappear from the POP3 spool. (Assuming that you're online.)

Remember: Compacting folders in SeaMonkey is a LOCAL process. Expunging is a SERVER process.

You, Trane, (I think), are saying on an IMAP account, a message is not
actually deleted/expunged, it's just marked for deletion/expurgation. It
*is* deleted/expunged as part of the expunging process.

I think we disagree on giving equal meaning to delete and expunge. If you know anything about programming, it might be good to use the analogy of garbage collection in OOP languages. When an object that is no longer wanted is destroyed, it doesn't go away immediately. It is marked for removal and later on the garbage collector comes along to take care of the housekeeping and free the memory that was used by that object. IMAP expunging is similar. Expunging is done on the folder level because it is less "expensive" to clean up the whole inbox at one time than it is to constantly visit the mail spool to deal with individual messages and makes synchronizing folders far more efficient.

You say "either", I say "either"!! Doesn't quite work in text, but you
know what I mean, don't you??

As a native English speaker, I do. I do, however, disagree that we're saying that same things. IMO, we aren't.

Cross-post and follow-up set to m.general.

Posted directly to m.s.s, as this is entirely topical to SeaMonkey and I no longer visit m.general.

--
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// Trane Francks   [email protected]   Tokyo, Japan
// Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
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