Empty Spam & Trash

A Thunderbird add-on that adds one toolbar button to permanently delete everything in your Spam/Junk and Trash folders, across all accounts.

Features

• Finds every real Junk and Trash folder in every account. Unified and virtual folders are skipped, so nothing is counted twice.
• Shows how many messages are in each folder before anything is deleted.
• Asks for confirmation with a second click before deleting.
• Deletes permanently. Messages do not go back into Trash.

Compatibility

Thunderbird	Status
153 ESR / current release	✅
140 ESR	✅
128 ESR	✅
127 and older	❌ (needs the folders.query API from 128)

Installation

From a release

1. Download the latest empty-spam-trash-*.xpi from the Releases page.
2. In Thunderbird, open Tools → Add-ons and Themes.
3. Click the gear icon, choose Install Add-on From File…, and select the .xpi.

From source (for development)

1. Clone this repository.
2. In Thunderbird, open Tools → Developer Tools → Debug Add-ons.
3. Click Load Temporary Add-on… and select manifest.json.

Usage

1. Click the Empty Spam & Trash button in the toolbar.
2. Check the list of folders and message counts.
3. Click Delete all permanently, then click again to confirm.

⚠️ Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone. Make sure there is nothing in Spam or Trash that you want to keep.

Permissions

Permission	Why it is needed
accountsRead	To list your accounts and find their Junk and Trash folders
messagesRead	To count and list messages in those folders
messagesDelete	To delete the messages

The add-on makes no network requests and collects no data.

Building

./build.sh

This creates two identical archives:

• dist/empty-spam-trash-<version>.zip: upload this to addons.thunderbird.net.
• dist/empty-spam-trash-<version>.xpi: install this directly in Thunderbird.

Releasing

Update version in manifest.json and add an entry to CHANGELOG.md. Then build and publish:

./build.sh
git tag v1.1.0 && git push origin v1.1.0
gh release create v1.1.0 dist/empty-spam-trash-1.1.0.xpi dist/empty-spam-trash-1.1.0.zip --title v1.1.0 --notes-file <(sed -n '/^## 1.1.0/,/^## /{/^## /!p}' CHANGELOG.md)

License

GPL-3.0-or-later © 2026 dschaefer79