[lug] Mozilla mail client misses messages?

[Jeff Schroeder]

Bear wrote:

> I just discovered something rather shocking while coding an
> embedded Java mail client.  According to Mozilla 1.5, my inbox has
> 699 messages.  According to the Java client, it had over 800
> messages.  When I check the mail spool directly (one of the
> benefits of running your own mail server) I found over 800
> individual messages.

It sounds like you're seeing the results of Mozilla "tagging" messages 
that have been deleted.  I saw the same behavior long ago, and was 
worried about it, until I figured out that when you delete a message in 
your Mozilla inbox, it appears to move to the Trash area and get purged 
when you close the mail client... but that's not what really happens.

In reality, Mozilla "tags" the message as deleted and simply doesn't 
render it in the Inbox.  IIRC it has some kind of goofy index file that 
basically tells it what messages to show.  If you run a "compact 
folders" command (under File, I think) it'll go through all its mail 
files and clean up-- by removing the tagged messages for real.  At that 
point your Java client should see the same thing.

Take my comments with a grain of salt, because I haven't used 
Mozilla/Netscape mail for years.  KMail rocks. :)  (And incidentally, 
KMail does the same thing-- tagging and indexing-- so it's probably 
pretty common amongst mail clients.)

HTH,
Jeff