what does 'compact' do?

[apollo13]

as asked in the title:
what does 'compact' do?

thanks in advance apollo13

[dogcow]

I think it makes your email messages take up less disk space.

[bpat1434]

Basically, IMAP doesn't "delete" messages, it marks them for deletion. Here's a quick synopsis:

Moving Messages:
- You select a (some) message(s) to be moved.
- You define where the message(s) is (are) moved to
- The IMAP server makes a direct copy of the message(s) to the destination
- The IMAP server then marks the moved messages as deleted. Also known as Flagging for Deletion.

Deleting Messages:
- You select messages for deletion
- The IMAP server marks the messages as deleted, also known as Flagging for Deletion.

Now, when you click the "Compact" link (or "Expunge" in some applications) every email in the current folder that is flagged for deletion is removed from that folder. So you'll see your disk usage shrink as you got rid of duplicate messages if you moved them, or messages you don't want/need.

Hope that answers your question.

[oxygens]

on the same line, if you have the imap account in outlook aswell, is there a way to "compact" as nothing ever deletes even if you click process marked headers.

[chinaman]

on the same line, if you have the imap account in outlook aswell, is there a way to "compact" as nothing ever deletes even if you click process marked headers.

In Outlook the function is called "Purge Deleted Messages" you'll find it below /edit

[ivan8r]

I used compact on my IMAP mailbox yesterday, and it not only removed all messages marked for deletion, but it also removed all of my Sent items. I assume that there is nothing I can do to recover these messages, but if there is something I could do, would you please let me know.

[Master One]

To pickup on this old thread, since I was just wondering the same thing:

Using 0.3.1, I have configured Roundcube to not hide messages marked as deleted. If I move a message from the inbox somewhere else (like the Trash folder), it gets moved, not just copied and marked as deleted in the inbox.

I guess, there is just no point in having that option with that configuration, right?

Also, I think "Compact" (or "Packen" in German) is not the right word for this operation (since it sounds more like something is going to be archived or compressed), if actually it is supposed to purge messages marked as deleted, which can end badly, like in ivan8r's case.