Strange... I used gmail imap, and I don't seem to have the problem. After deleting an email, I can't grep it in the .modest dir.

in the .modest folder, what files is it that would need to be deleted?

I noticed the same thing when backing up and had the same question.

Also the remove command appears in an earlier thread - is it typed in as stated once in .modest ? Tx.

Go to ~/.modest/cache/mail/pop/ (in case it's a POP3-account) and list the directories there. Each corresponds to one mail account.

(You may find directories for accounts you already deleted in modest. Remove them.)

Within each of these directories there's a folder 'cache', which in turn contains a number of strangly named sub-directories ('05', 3a' etc.). I only deleted these sub-directories as I wasn't sure what I was doing. It might be safe to remove the 'cache'-directory itself, but I don't know for sure.

I received notification that this bug was fixed several months ago.

https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3949

Now the dumb question, Do we wait for the upgrade to the OS or a sepciall port to diablo? Is ther anyway to get the fix?

The last comment in the bug is:
Setting Target Milestone to Fremantle SDK beta.

?? Sorry for the dumb question.

I find it unlikely that there will be a special update for diablo. maybe modest will be available on mer, but if not ones only option is to get a N900 with fremantle to have the bug fixed...

Still, there may be a vague hope that the community can continue to support the open source parts of diablo, and i think modest is one of those...

We are all waiting for clear words from nokia right now, but it seems they are running all communication thru the marketing department these days, to make sure detailed info on future devices stays controlled...

It's not a dumb question at all. :-)
Because it's not clear enough I nowadays in such cases add this comment when closing bugs that have been fixed only for Fremantle:

"This issue has been FIXED in Fremantle.
Unfortunately this is a WONTFIX for Diablo as Diablo is in maintenance mode and Nokia will only provide bugfixes for critical issues if at all. For your interest the Mer project aims to provide a community backport of Fremantle for N8x0 devices. See http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer for more information."

Well, it ain't pretty, but I've got a workaround:

1. Zero-out your email account on the device.
2. Go to your email provider's website and click on the 'Access Email Away From Home' (or similar) option.
3. Bookmark the logon screen.

Now, when you need your email, just use the bookmark, and delete whatever you please. Doesn't give you access to your desktop folders, but it keeps you in touch.

Right! Here are my quick 'manual' instructions based on previous posts in this thread (thanks given).

BTW, I gained about 22 Mb of Device memory after I purged email. Check in Control Panel, memory, Device details, before and after to see what you gain.

How to really delete the mail once it is deleted in Modest.

1. Clean out all folders from email, especially inbox
2. Close email application
3. Open xTerm
4. cd ~/.modest/cache/mail/pop/your_pop_mail_account/cache
5. Delete all the folders (two character names) in here with rm * -rf

I tried to make a command that runs this in osso statusbar app as follows:
rm ~/.modest/cache/mail/pop/my_mail_account/cache/* -rf

BUT it will not delete the folders. However, if I type the same command at the prompt it will delete the folders. Is this a permissions problem? Can I add something to the SINGLE command line to get past this problem? If not what is the simplest automated (ie a couple of taps) way to run this command. I actually have two accounts to clean up so a combination 'script' would be helpful.

Thanks for any input.

I really wish I understood how to do item 4 and 5 on your list, but alas, the last time I did any command line programming, I was in college back in the 1970's. I never realized when I bought this device that I'd have to learn programming just to get the default applications to work.

I've been hoping for the past year that there was some fix for this, and that I'm not crazy-that the emails really are accumulating and choking the memory of my 810.

If I can't figure out how to get your method to work, I guess I'll have to resort to periodically reflashing my tablet. That will work, but I'll have to re-enter all my settings manually, since, for some reason, I can't back up settings without also backing up all my "deleted" emails (30 Mb worth). That would sort of defeat the purpose.