Mozilla Thunderbird - 2 Junk/Spam folders and the correct way to delete one

[plittlefield]

Hi all,

I run docker-mailserver with Dovecot, and my Thunderbird client ended up with two folders both showing as "Spam". One was actually mapped to .Junk (correct, in use). The other was mapped to a real but empty .Spam folder on the server.

Since Thunderbird has no "delete folder" option for IMAP folders (only unsubscribe), I unsubscribed from the duplicate. That worked well. It is now hidden in Thunderbird.

The .Spam folder itself is still sitting on the server, empty, inside the user's Maildir. I have no Thunderbird filters sending mail to Junk or Spam, and no Sieve filters either, so nothing is relying on this folder.

What is the correct, supported way to properly delete an empty IMAP folder like this server-side, so it is removed cleanly rather than just hidden from the client? Is there a setup.sh command for this, should it be done directly via Dovecot's doveadm mailbox delete, or just delete it as normal from the Linux filesystem?

Thanks in advance.

Paully

[oliinykdm]

DDon't delete the Maildir folder by hand. That can leave the mailbox index inconsistent.

Remove it through Dovecot:

docker exec -it mailserver doveadm mailbox delete -u user@example.com Spam

Then check what's left:

docker exec -it mailserver doveadm mailbox list -u user@example.com

Unsubscribe in Thunderbird only hides the folder in the client. The empty .Spam directory stays on the server until doveadm mailbox delete runs.

Replace mailserver with the container name and user@example.com with the mailbox.

[plittlefield]

Yes, that worked and thanks. I have added it to my Wiki.