Problem deleting messages on Thunderbird

Jazzy_B

I have a couple of email accounts that I only download to Thunderbird once every couple of weeks, because of the spam I get on them. Yesterday I started downloading one of the accounts, and pressed "stop" after over a hundred had downloaded. Thunderbird suddenly closed down. For some reason, they downloaded without showing the account information.If I click on them, Thunderbird closes down. As the messages are all spam, I tried to delete them by selecting the messages above to the message below, but it just hangs.
Does anyone know how I can get rid of them?
If I can't get rid of them, how can I save my existing messages, so that I could transfer them to a new profile?
Thunderbird is working fine, but I really don't want this spam left in my inbox.

theboylard

Have you turned on junk mail filtering?
Tools>Account Settings>Junk Settings for each account?
Ensure the 4 tick boxes are done (if your mail has spam headers inserted by Spampal or SpamAssassin), else leave the third tick box "Trust junk mail headers set by:" unticked. And the fourth tick box just select the junk folder for the account name.

You don't mention what sort of mail accounts these are? If they are your ISP's, do they offer spam filtering?
Is it your own mail service, linked with a domain you own (best option in my opinion, you control everything and it is dirt cheap, plus you are independent from your ISP)? If so there would be an option to use a server side spam filter, sorts the wheat from the chaff before it even gets to you!

Jazzy_B

Thanks for the reply. I think I've resolved the problem by creating a new inbox, transferring the messages I want, and deleting the old inbox.
The accounts were both with Tiscali. I didn't have the option of Junk mail filters for individual accounts with the version of Thunderbird I had, but have just downloaded the latest one. I'll set it up as you suggest.
Thanks

Pikeyp

To save your existing messages, use Mozbackup from here ... http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/ ..

I use this regularly to back-up Thunderbird and Firefox .. really useful and free!

Another useful tip is to create a new profile for importing into .. just in case anything goes wrong! .. more info here ... http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/profile ..

fatnbald

Pikeyp wrote: »

To save your existing messages, use Mozbackup from here ... http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/ ..

I use this regularly to back-up Thunderbird and Firefox .. really useful and free!

Another useful tip is to create a new profile for importing into .. just in case anything goes wrong! .. more info here ... http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/profile ..

Do you find it works ok? I tried using it and it did not work well at all, I now back up the thunderbird and firefox profile folders using a file synch program to a network drive due to my mistrust of mozbackup

Pikeyp

Yes .. I've used it several times without issue! Very handy for moving from one PC to another for example, backup to a USB stick and away you go!

Of course it's good practice to have another back-up too just in case .. I also do a similar excercise to you .. backing up my whole User folder to another drive (this in Vista btw) on occasions.