What does expunge do

Support
1

Hi,

Does anyone know what the ‘expunge’ option does? Can’t find it in any documentation and it appears to do nothing.

Thanks for any help.

Rod

2

In IMAP a “delete” only marks a message for deletion. Depending on the client it may remove it from the display or simply mark it in some way. An “expunge” actually deletes the message from the server. With K9, which removes a deleted message from the display, it’s not obvious that an expunge does anything. If, however, you also have the mailbox opened with a client that only marks messages as deleted these messages will disappear from the display when that client next queries the server after a K9 expunge.

Interestingly, “expunge” is an option, and works, even when the account is marked as “do not delete on server” in the K9 configuration.

3

Hi njeyaakili,

Many thanks for the explaination - now I understand.

Best regards
Rod