What is an email retention policy?

Email retention settings define a period of duration until expiry when the email is deleted. The retention period begins from the date of creation (for emails you send) or the date of receipt (for emails you've received).

To set up a message retention policy

  1. Right click on the email folder for which you want to set up a retention property, and then click Properties from the menu that appears.
  2. The Folder Properties window opens.
  3. Click the Retention Policytab.

    thunderbird_retention_policy

  4. Click the Use my account settings option to turn it off.
  5. Do one of the following:
    • Select the Delete all but the most recent messages option, and then enter the number of recent messages that you want to keep.
    • Select the Delete messages more than days old option, then enter the number of days you want to keep the messages.
  6. Click the OK button.

From now on, Thunderbird will delete messages in that folder based on the retention policy you create.