User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090624 Firefox/3.5 Build Identifier: version 2.0.0.12 (20080213) If you use imap and want to have messages available online, you go to Account Settings / Offline & Disk space and check the appropriate box. If you then look down in that form, you seem to have the option to limit the disk space you need on your local computer to cache the mails. First you can choose to not download large messages, and next you can choose to delete older messages. However, if you do this, the older messages are deleted from the server, not from the offline cache! This way I lost two years worth of correspondence, which is why I have marked this bug as critical. The bug is that the word 'disk space' is used twice in the form, the first time it refers to your local hard drive, the second time it refers to the imap server's storage. This bug should be addressed together with this one: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=223557 Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Go to Tools / Account Settings 2. In the tree on the left, select an imap account, and then Offline & Disk Space 3. Check the radio button 'Delete messages more than [30] days old' Actual Results: You will now loose all mail more than [30] days old, not only from the offline cache, but also from the server. Expected Results: Maybe the behavior is intentional, but the wording is definitely wrong. I expected this option would limit the size of the offline cache. It would be nice to actually have an option which limits the offline cache size. The panel is subdivided in two subpanels, titled 'Offline' and 'Disk space' I would move the option 'To save disk space, do not download for offline use...' to the Offline panel. Next, I would rename the Disk space panel to 'Mailbox size', and rename the remaining option; Old: To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted New: To limit the size of your mailbox, old messages can be automatically deleted from the server

The primary issue is addressed in bug 410597 by providing more specific labels for the IMAP and POP cases where the retention period affects both server and local copies. Then, there is also bug 482476 to establish separate space and time policies for the offline copies. If you look at the Thunderbird 3.0 beta 3 testing release or a current nightly builld, you will see that various labels in these settings have been clarified. The settings affecting offline copies only are not yet provided in the UI. This bug should probably be closed as a duplicate of bug 410597 if the current implementation sufficiently addresses your concerns, but I'm leaving this open for now as it appears you are suggesting more changes to the panels and labels.

Herkimer can you try 3.0b3 and post your feedback here please ?

Since there are no further comments from the reporter, closing per comment #1.