Mailbox size warnings

[#1]

I have received a number of emails from PN recently warning that the mailbox size limit is 1GB, and telling me my default mailbox is at around 750MB.  The emails contain instructions for checking all your folder sizes through the WebMail interface.  So I've followed the instructions and added up the size of ALL of the folders listed, and it comes to 249MB.

However, on some folders the size given by the Webmail interface varies hugely. E.g. for my Inbox I have seen 88MB, then 27MB, then 0MB, then 27MB again and so on - that's just asking it repeatedly with nothing else changing in between.  Similarly Sent Items sometimes says it's 39MB, and sometimes 0MB.  So basically there is not a reliable way to determine mail folder sizes.

My mail client (Thunderbird) can report the local disk space used for each folder (clearly this could differ from the size on PN's servers) - mostly this does tally very closely with the sizes reported by WebMail, except that it reports my Inbox as being 142MB (versus anywhere between 0 and 88MB from WebMail) and Sent Items as 395MB (!) (versus between 0 and 39MB from WebMail).  If I tot up all the sizes that Thunderbird reports then I get a total of 710MB which is still some way short of the 750MB in the warning email.

So in conclusion, (a) the total in the email appears to be a bit off, and (b) the method described in the email to determine mail folder sizes doesn't work.  I will go ahead and have a bit of a purge anyway, but it would be useful to be given accurate information and instructions for a method which does actually work.

[#2]

@MikeBz 

Agreed, but as has been said in these threads so many times, you get what you pay for. When I joined PN years ago we tried to set up PN email but despaired of its tortuous system and convoluted @@ address provided. Our BB has been excellent with good speeds and no downtime in years, otherwise you get minimum service for minimum price and PN runs on minimum staff who do their very best even before these troubled times.

Mailboxes are like roofspaces or garages, ie junk expands to fill the space available. We use an independent provider (Fastmail) for a few £s a year and manage our mailbox limit by regular deletions, keeping all our mails on Thunderbird which we regularly back up via one of the utilities available from Mozilla. This might work for you?

[#3]

@MikeBz If you are using TB as a client, unless you set it to retain mail for a time on the server (i don't), then once you have d/l'd the mail via TB , your webmail box should be '0' for all folders.

[#4]

@Longliner I find PN mail works well enough for me, it's just a bit useless to get an email which contains instructions which don't work.

@jab1 I always retain mail on the server so that I can access it through WebMail from anywhere if on the odd occasion that I need to.  Also it then doesn't matter if the device I'm running the client on goes belly up, I don't lose a useful audit trail of sent emails, order confirmations etc. going way back.

I'm quite happy to do my own housekeeping.  The lesson learned is trust what the mail client says and ignore what WebMail says (and any instructions which refer to it).

[#5]

OK, @MikeBz I understand what you are saying, but I have a different approach - if I want to save emails (like orders &c), they are regularly backed up to external media (x2) and deleted from the device - I have a great dislike of 'bloat' on my system, even though I very rarely have 2/3rds in use, so plenty of headroom for the odd time I (say) want to sort my music or pictures collections - again stored on external media, but copied to the laptop if want to work away from the desk.

[#6]

This observed behaviour could be related to the underlying Webmail performance issues reported elsewhere.

Superuser citation

This topic has been cited by one of the Superusers; the purpose of which is to provide a note for information which might help to focus continued discussion (but might not result in a staff response).

Slow webmail

There is a known gremlin in the third party Round Cube webmail program which can cause delays in listing emails - see the end user mitigation post at the top of the Email board here. It somewhat appears that any sorting or filtering on a large mailbox cripples the performance of RC webmail, where as the 'basic' webmail program (Squirrel Mail) is not affected. Using Squirrel Mail can be an effective way of accessing a mail box which is running slow with RC.

There is no necessity to restrict your access to your Plusnet email via the Plusnet Webmail interface. Virtually every IT device comes with an in-built email program which can be configured to access your Plusnet email service. See the setting up an email client guide.

Some have found logging into their mailbox using this third party webmail client - https://mail2web.com helpful in clearing out clutter from their mailboxes.

Culling mailbox contents

If you need to clean out your mailbox, may be because it is over quota, then as well as tidying up the inbox, you need to also look at the SENT ITEMS folder and then afterwards clear out the TRASH folder. However some times webmail performance can make this process very tedious, particularly if the delete action (actually a move to the trash folder) fails.

If you primarily want to delete emails, you can mitigate delete performance issues by doing an "immediate" delete (rather than a move to trash for deletion later) by holding down the SHIFT key when pressing the DEL key. This works in both webmail and most PC based email clients. WARNING SHIFT+DEL is not recoverable so be certain absolutely, that you do not need the email before pressing the buttons!

Alternatively, in webmail (Round Cube) Settings -> Server Settings there are some options worth exploring controlling how deletes are performed...

1. Flag the message for deletion instead of delete
2. If moving messages to "Deleted Items" fails, permanently delete them
3. Compact Inbox on logout

Setting these options and using them together will avoid the over heads of moving items to the trash folder when you wish to delete them. They will simply be greyed out and remain in the inbox list. After logging out of webmail, they will then be removed from the mailbox.

Whilst this might be highly proficient, it needs to be used with care, for when they are gone, they are gone. Note also that Plusnet house-keeping clears out the trash folder weekly.

[#7]

If there are any unexpected issues related to the use/performance of Roundcube, Plusnet would benefit from raising them with the project as it is actively developed and very responsive to such reports. Note however that depending on what the suspected cause is there might be an expectation of using an up to date version - what are Plusnet using?