Ok, before I get blasted, yes I have searched and read the forums! I have the latest OS2008 feature upgrade, 5.200843-7, and I have figured out that email that is download from a pop3 server doesn't actually ever get deleted off the N810. Although I delete it and there is nothing in the inbox, sent, or trash, if I run a backup, the email.zip has allot of data. I even deleted all the mail off the server, but to no avail, the email is still on the N810, somewhere. I tried deleting the email account, but still there. Soooo how does one actually purge the email from the N810, it keeps consuming memory?

Is this a new bug?

Ok now start shooting your arrows..............

The built in email app is very buggy, and as you've noticed, doesn't delete the mail. Give Claws Mail a go, it's a fantastic little email app with many more features than the default app, and made better with the addition on plugins. You'll find it in the Maemo Extras repository

I have claws mail, however I bought a n810 for my father, and I have tried to keep things very basic for him. I still need to purge the email, thoughts? After I flashed, it was gone, but doing some testing I found the bug. I tried going into /home/apps/email/Mail and deleteing things out of Inbox and Sent, not sure if this is claws or default email path. Email use to clean itself up, no longer. Any thoughts?

i would suggest filing a bug over at bugs.maemo.org...

or maybe i should do so myself...

Thanks, very helpful............not. I will file a bug...

dont bother, rather vote here:
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3949

Thanks I voted!!! Being a newbie, i did not know where the files were stored, .modest/cache and below. I rm * -rf and cleared them, which is what I was trying to figure out. Thanks, indirectly.

I realized the same thing with my IMAP account. However, I did find that if you manually move the file over to the trash (drag and drop the email I want deleted from the right column to the "trash" folder on the left column after expanding the main folder) for your email account, you just have to hit the "empty trash" button when you actually log into your webmail account every once in a while and they'll be deleted for good.

It's not a perfect fix, but it's less annoying then seeing them all greyed out and having to reclick and redelete them all from webmail.

no trash on pop accounts...

but then i have long suspected that modest developers have (over)focused on imap, with pop support being a afterthought...

(and its echoed by some of the responses when related to some enhancement/bug reports)

I didn't have time yet to try this with the latest SSU, but before modest would keep directories for accounts you had deleted long before. I was very surprised to find account data for 2 POP3-accounts I don't use any more and therefore deleted in July when I entered ~/.modest to clear the cache-directories as described here.