Thunderbird option "Leave messages on server for at most XX days" not working with Verizon mail

[ACABThomas1]

In Thunderbird version 17.0.8 running on WinXP, I setup my Verizon mail account as a POP mail account, pulling messages from my Verizon.net mailbox

I have 2+ years worth of messages and am hitting the mail quota. I want TB to pull all of my messages from the server, but not delete them for 90 days so that I have time to sync them to my other devices. I set the Server Settings by checking "Leave messages on server" and "For at most 90 days", like so:

So I would expect anything older than 90 days should get deleted from the server after TB pulls it, correct? Nothing seems to get deleted, no matter how many times I fetch mail. I tried changing that 90 days to different values, and even tried recreating the Account - no luck.

How do I get TB to remove old messages from the server automatically based on date?

Thanks!

[somegirl]

Based on the way it is worded, I suspect that it is waiting 90 days from when Thunderbird pulled the message, not from the date received.

[ACABThomas1]

I was wondering the same thing, but can't seem to find a definitive answer anywhere.  I would think it would be based on the creation date of the message on the server, and not the date that it was pulled.  I would think it would be difficult to write the code that checks the "when pulled" date for each message and then deletes the right ones from the server.  Whereas deleting all messages older then X days on the server would be very straightforward.

[somegirl]

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@ACABThomas wrote:

I was wondering the same thing, but can't seem to find a definitive answer anywhere.  I would think it would be based on the creation date of the message on the server, and not the date that it was pulled.  I would think it would be difficult to write the code that checks the "when pulled" date for each message and then deletes the right ones from the server.  Whereas deleting all messages older then X days on the server would be very straightforward.

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The deletion command come from Thunderbird, not Verizon's servers. Thunderbird has logs of when it pulled messages, so it's not really any more difficult than received date.

Hopefully someone will be along here that has a better working knowledge of Thunderbird (there are several around), but if not you might try over at the Thunderbird Support Forum for help.