Subscriber JPB had a question about deleting emails, and why they don’t get recycled:

When you delete files (normally) they go to the recycle bin. How come E-mail doesn’t work the same way. it get’s compacted? I’m using Thunderbird and Windows 7.

The reason that deleted emails don’t show up in the Recycle Bin is that the Recycle Bin stores files after you delete them (note that some programs will delete files without putting them into the Recycle Bin). This is sometimes a problem with older programs or programs that are simplistically ported from another operating system.

Most Windows email programs store emails as data in large files containing multiple emails. They’re not stored as individual files. Email “folders” are actually files, in most cases, although some email programs may not create separate files for the folders.

Thunderbird is one such, as is Eudora OSE (which I use), which is based on Thunderbird. Thunderbird stores all its emails in a database file called global-messages-db.sqlite.

JPB still had some concerns, though: