MAry asks:
> From: Mary Hawking <[log in to unmask]>
>
> If you delete a message before or after reading it,does it take up space
> on the hard disc?
> Mary
Depends a little bit on your system, and on how it interacts with
e-mail.
In general, messages that are awaiting reading are held either on a
part of your hard disk, or on the hard disk of a part of the mail
service (the posh name for the second one is a 'message store', which
more or less says it all).
When you read the message, it is usually copied onto your local hard
disk, simply to have it readily accessible in case you want to
forward it, reply to it, or whatever. However, once you delete it,
the space it occupies will be freed. The freed space may not be
immediately available for other applications; some mail systems have
a process which is activated from time to time which does a 'garbage
collection', finding all the bits of disk that have been used and
collecting them altogether, then re-organising the material that is
left so that it forms a compact sset of material, finally handing
back the space that has been freed. That is why when you are doing
mail, you may find your system goes into a sudden orgy of disk
transfers, for no apparent reason.
Mike Wells
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Professor Mike Wells
Department of Physics, The University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
Phone: 0113-233-2339 E-Mail [log in to unmask]
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