The key is "supposed". At least one or two mails a day are not only not spam but also important messages.

But if you are going into the folder every day to get these false positives how did it get to be 90K messages.  Are you not deleting the trash? 

By the way... I tried to create a filter rule to delete from mailbox

some spam messages before downloading new ones but haven't succeeded

... any idea on how to do it?

I've done a lot of testing with POP3 server side filtering and it pretty much worked as specified.  Here's one of my server side filter setups where I am deleting mail older that 14 days.

--------------------------------------------- age.pnp --------------------------------------------

Age
If age older than 14 DeleteOnServer ""
If not age older than 15 Download ""

----------------------------------------------- end -------------------------------------------------

If nothing else though you can always use the PMail "Selective mail download" to get rid of the trash on the server.

My spamhalter spam folder has achieved more than 90000 messages. I think over 64000 it started to be unnaccesible. I forgot about it for weeks but several days ago I had problems for finding an email and tried to open it to look for it inside. It counts messages on the status bar and then changes to sorting and there PM dies.

Is there a limit for messages stored on a folder?

How can I split this folder in two to open it and delete spam messages and check for any valid ones that could exist?

 PM 4.50 PB1 under Windows Vista, data stored in NTFS drive

[quote user="Antonio"]My spamhalter spam folder has achieved more than 90000 messages. I think over 64000 it started to be unnaccesible. I forgot about it for weeks but several days ago I had problems for finding an email and tried to open it to look for it inside. It counts messages on the status bar and then changes to sorting and there PM dies.

Is there a limit for messages stored on a folder?

Nope, but as you have found opening a folder with more than 64K messages gets really really slow.  

How can I split this folder in two to open it and delete spam messages and check for any valid ones that could exist?

Open it and walk away for a long time.  Once it's open move the messages to multiple folders (I recommend no more than 20K per folder) and then delete the original file.  Personally I'd simply delete the since it supposed to be spam anyway.  ;-)  You must have not looked at it for at least some long period of time.

It's going to take quite some time.  FWIW, if you are never going to look at this folder then you should attach a general rule set to the folder to delete messages older than some fixed period (say 90 days).  Still will take a long time to open when it gets over 64K messages but then it's easier to solve after the folder finally opens and is compressed.

 PM 4.50 PB1 under Windows Vista, data stored in NTFS drive[/quote]

[quote user="Thomas R. Stephenson"] Nope, but as you have found opening a folder with more than 64K messages gets really really slow. Open it and walk away for a long time.  [/quote]

Had left several hours, 2GB, Intel Dual Core, SATA Disk... No response.

[quote user="Thomas R. Stephenson"] Personally I'd simply delete the since it supposed to be spam anyway.  ;-)  [/quote]

The key is "supposed". At least one or two mails a day are not only not spam but also important messages.

[quote user="Thomas R. Stephenson"] FWIW, if you are never going to look at this folder then you should attach a general rule set to the folder to delete messages older than some fixed period (say 90 days).  [/quote]

Haven't thought about this. Created rule, applied and applying now... seems to be working hard disk LED ... will let some time to do the job. What I used to do is delete manually the oldest mails each 3-4 months.

By the way... I tried to create a filter rule to delete from mailbox some spam messages before downloading new ones but haven't succeeded ... any idea on how to do it?