I have a mail server running postfix and then using dovecot so others 

can reach it using imap. I go check mail using thunderbird and delete a few emails, emptying the trash afterwards. Then I quit it and access it using pine. The deleted emails are still there, marked as marked for deletion. I delete a few other emails within pine and quit. It asks to delete the marked emails, I tell go for it, and it does. When I go back to THunderbird all those emails are gone.

Next I tell thunderbird to mark certain messages as spam and delete email I marked as spam. I quit it and go back to pine. The spam marked messages which thunderbird swore were deleted are still there.

THis really does not seem to be a dovecot issue, but has someone seen that happen? If so, what is going on?