evolution - removal of deleted items

[Smoot Carl-Mitchell]

On Fri, 2009-06-05 at 21:20 +0100, norman wrote:
> > > I was unable to empty the Deleted items file using Ubuntu 8.10 so I have
> > > just upgraded to 9.04 and the problem is still there. I have just
> > > checked and, to my horror, there are over 17.000 items there. Please
> > > advise me on how to rectify this problem.
> > > 
> > 
> > We'd probably need to know more information.
> > Are you using POP or IMAP? Which provider?
> > stuff like that...
> > For instance, deleting stuff with POP from your ISP can be different 
> > from deleting stuff with gmail and IMAP.
> 
> I did some research and found that I am not the only user to have
> encountered this problem and it was suggested by removing this file the
> problem could go away:- ~/.evolution/mail/local/folders.db. Being
> ignorant in such matters I am reluctant to do this unless I can be sure
> I would not lose those messages which are in folders I want to keep.
> Have you any idea whether it would be safe to take this step, please?

Yes, you can delete the folders.db file without harming any messages.
Evo will rebuild the file as you access your folders.  folders.db only
hold message state information and does not hold any of the actual
messages.  Be sure to shutdown Evo and run

evolution --force-shutdown

from the command line before you delete the folders.db file.

I have done the above when I was having problems with the folders data.
It appears a few bugs were introduced when Evo went from flat files to
an sqlite database.
-- 
Smoot Carl-Mitchell
Computer Systems and
Network Consultant
smoot at tic.com
+1 480 922 7313
cell: +1 602 421 9005