How to solve the mail box size limit for thunderbird

Question

Hi,
I tried to do archiving for my mails but everytime it will prompt me mail box size limit has reached and ask me to delete older mails and the problem is my HDD is more than enough to contain those archives so am asking if there's anything which i can get this solved for good?
Regards.
Andrew Koh

Answer 1

Background info:
Emails are downloaded and stored in the Inbox file written one after the other.; they are not stored as individual emails in their own file. So the Inbox folder in the FolderPane is actually a file.
Any email you delete is marked as deleted and from your point of view it disappears from eg: Inbox and reappears in 'Deleted' folder. In reality it is still in the Inbox taking up space, marked as deleted and hidden from view. Compacting removes all traces of 'marked as deleted' emails and reduces the file size. If a file becomes corrupted and you compact that file you may lose good emails. this can occur if you do not compact on a regular basis.
It is wise to create a backup on a regular basis.
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup
'''RE: Archiving'''
Archiving is not a backup. It is a means of storing old emails in smaller files accessible within your Profile mail account. So releasing space in other folders.
If you have been archiving all emails into just one Archives folder, then you are putting all of your emails into one file.
Did you set up Archive Options?
See info at these links:
* https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/archived-messages
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/Archiving_your_e-mail
Did you choose to archive by month and retain folder structure?
By using these options, if you archived last months Sent emails and say you had another folder called 'Family' and you did the same, they would be stored as follows into smaller files, so you should not reach a mailbox limit.
There will be no emails stored in the actual 'Archives' folder, nor the '2014' or '2014-5' folders, they will be in the relevant folder name - see below
eg:
> Archives
>->2014
>->->2014-05
>->->->Family (one month of emails here)
>->->-> Sent (one month of emails here)
Suggest you do the following and in this order:
* create a backup
* delete any emails not required
* compact folders
* set up Archive options and organise emails as shown above, so that emails are only in that months eg: Sent archive Folder.
* Create another backup when everything is organised.