Managing a Large Inbox (SquirrelMail & Mozilla Thunderbird)

We generally recommend that inboxes not exceed 20 MB. Reducing the size of your inbox can improve response times, especially with offsite access. Also, a reduction in size will decrease the chances of your inbox becoming corrupted and unreadable. If you would like our assistance with this, please contact us at support@egr.msu.edu.

Attachments are usually the cause of a large inbox. Downloading attachments to your M: drive is a good way to decrease inbox size. The links below give instructions for doing this with various mail clients.

An alternative to deleting messages completely is moving them to different mailboxes. All IMAP mailboxes other than the inbox are stored as files on your M: drive. These mailboxes are stored in a different location than the inbox messages. As this is the case, moving messages there will alleviate problems with slowness and response time. The links below give instructions for doing this with various mail clients. Please keep in mind that IMAP mailboxes will count toward your total disk quota usage.

Checking Inbox Size

To check your inbox size, login to DECS Account Information Page with any web browser.

If your account is using 100 percent of its disk quota (M: drive space), deleting messages may require some e-mail client modifications. The problem can also be resolved by the reduction in the usage of other areas of M: drive space. Directions for making the changes with various e-mail clients have been prepared below.

Managing Inbox Size

Managing Attachments:

• SquirrelMail
• Mozilla Thunderbird

Moving Messages to Other Folders:

• SquirrelMail
• Mozilla Thunderbird