evolution - removal of deleted items

[norman]

> > > > 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.

> > 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.

Thank you very much, problem solved.

Norman