In the last few issues of Computing News, the subject of IMAP email trash has been discussed. The main driver for this is that a number of employees are being charged for email stored in their trash files (all employees can store up to 100 megabytes of email at no charge). Currently, about 20 percent of the storage on the central IMAP email server is taken up by files stored in employees' trash folders. Although each article in the past has been followed by a small dip in the amount of stored trash, some employees have asked for more information - specifically about getting rid of the trash. Here it is.

With your IMAP email account, you have use of a number of folders for sorting and storing email. Some of these folders, which are listed under the imap4.lbl.gov icon, are stored on the central server. These folders include Inbox, Trash, Sent, Drafts and others created by each employee. When a message from any of these folders is deleted, it is filed in the Trash folder, where it remains until the Trash folder is specifically emptied. It is the messages in these Trash folders that constitute one-fifth of the stored messages on the IMAP server.

To check your Trash folder contents, click on the Trash folder icon and you'll see a listing of each file or message stored there. To empty the trash folder, pull down the menu under "File" and click on "Empty Trash on imap4.lbl.gov." This will permanently delete those files.

You can also set up your account so your trash folder is automatically emptied each time you close your email application. To do this, go to the Edit menu, and select: Preferences ->Mail & Newsgroups -> Mail Servers -> imap4.lbl.gov -> Edit (button) -> IMAP (tab) -> click the checkbox next to "Empty Trash on exit" -> Ok.

Click here to check the amount of email you have stored on the IMAP4 server.

Another tip for keeping your total storage on IMAP servers down is to file messages on your local hard drive. You can do this by setting up folders under the Local Mail icon in IMAP. A good rule of thumb is to only keep those messages you need to remotely access filed on the central server. Another tip for reducing the amount of stored email - regularly clean out your "Sent" mail folder. This is a two-stage process in that unwanted files are first sent to the trash folder, which must be emptied as described above.