[Dovecot] Can't delete certain messages

[Stan Hoeppner]

Karl Davenport put forth on 9/22/2010 11:24 AM:
> Running Dovecot version 1.0.10 on Ubuntu Server 8.04 amd64 (ext3).
> 
> Some users have emails that will not go away.  They delete them and the
> message is moved to the trash folder only to reappear when the mailbox
> is refreshed.  Moving the message manually to another folder has the
> same effect.  We are running Thunderbird as our email client, though I
> have tried using other clients to remove the messages.

IIRC, by default, Thunderbird only performs expunge and trash folder
emptying upon exit (though it's configurable with a check box), so
anything in the trash will be there until closing TB.  If you'd like
emails to be deleted immediately, set "When I delete a message:" to
"Remove it immediately" in the "Tools->Account Settings->Server
Settings" tab _instead of_ "Move it to this folder [Trash]".

Also, worthy of note, is that TB's "Trash" is a local folder by default,
NOT an IMAP folder.  So if the trash isn't emptying properly, it can't
be a Dovecot issue, as the Trash folder is on the local hard disk
(unless some genius admin relocated everyone's Trash folder to IMAP
storage or a network share via some ill advised group policy etc).

-- 
Stan