Does anyone know what the .mail folder/directory contains?

[mslisaj]

My .mail folder contains a bunch of files I can't identify what they are or what they are used for. I have moved ALL THE FILES AND TOKENS to a temp directory and my Here seems to be working fine with the .mail folder empty. I think these files have something to do with email I receive and delete. Has anyone ever cleared out this directory to conserve storage space? Are these useless files and can be deleted?
I would appreciate a comment from someone that knows what those files are.
Of course can I delete them?

 

[jmxp69]

On IMAP servers, that's where downloaded mail goes. I'll check mine out to see if that's what's going on. (I use IMAP for mail).

J

 

[mslisaj]

Funny thing since I have emptied the folder it's staying empty. If a picture is part of an email it ends up here and I just delete it but I still have no clue what all those files that were in there that I moved to "temp" folder.

Thanks for answering my question and I will be curious as to what you find out is going on in your device with this .mail folder........

Thanks JMXP
I'll be waiting for your answer...........

 

[jmxp69]

The only thing I found in that folder were attachments from messages I sent. No local copy of IMAP e-mail.

J

 

[mslisaj]

So JMXP, would you say that they all could be deleted without any harm? I want to clear out this directory as it seems to grow so once in awhile I would like to get rid of it all but didn't want to in case there was some importance there. I may have to get brave and just try it.

Thanks for your continued help........

Lisa

 

[jmxp69]

I just confirmed, it only stores attachments in there. No messages or message indexes. If you delete a message from your SENT folder that had an attachment, the attached file in .mail gets deleted with the message.

Bottom line, I don't think you'll hurt anything deleting those. Obviously you won't be able to see attachments in messages you keep in your mail folders if you delete from .mail

J

 

[mslisaj]

Thanks so much and I think you're right. I have been diligently, from the email client going into folders there and deleting everything I want to get rid of and nothing is going to the .mail folder any more. We may have solved this riddle. Now I just have to be brave enough to delete the temp folder I created with all that junk in it. I have an on line backup for my device so if I needed that directory I could get it back but I'm going to delete it and see what happens...........

The one thing about these phones running Android, there is NO DOCUMENTATION on the subtleties of the program. Its folks in these forums asking questions and exchanging ideas that get us all over the hump of this new OS.

Thanks again and I will give feedback here on what happens with I delete that Directory.

 

[mslisaj]

As I promised when I got brave and deleted all the Files in the .mail folder I would report on the results. Well I will gladly report that NOTHING HAPPENED. As mentioned these files were remnants of attachments or other things. So now I keep this folder empty and my phone works fine. Thank you all for your comments and help.
Lisa