When opening attachments from compose new message window, thunderbird makes empty .part files in ~

[jacobh]

Dear all,

I asked about this on the Thunderbird Support forums but didn’t get a reply from anyone so I hoped I might cross-post here.

I am using the stock version of Thunderbird which is currently at version 115.2.0. However, this problem has been around for a while so I think it has been a feature of previous versions of Thunderbird.

If I open a file from the compose new message window, (i.e. by pressing Ctrl + N, adding an attachment and then double-clicking on it to open it) Thunderbird creates an empty file in my home directory which has a string of 8 random characters, followed a file extension, followed by “.part”.

The following is a current sample:

Code: Select all

~$ ls -lh *part

-rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:34 awY5IqBI.html.part
-rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:28 cfFcyHkJ.doc.part
-rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:07 DiPn-4cu.docx.part
-rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep  7 11:41 g7ngLyYT.docx.part
-rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:23 OQmzzCQA.docx.part
-rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 13:43 oudly2Yk.docx.part
-rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:24 PFBSL0l2.doc.part
-rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 13:45 quY1cBL5.docx.part
-rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 13:45 s8OlybHI.docx.part
-rw------- 1 jacobh jacobh 0 Sep 11 16:27 _ZjeIW77.html.part

Oddly the .html.part files are not generated by opening HTML files but instead by opening PDFs. The others are generated by opening .doc files and .docx.

For the avoidance of doubt, I don’t get this behaviour if I open an attachment by double-clicking on it from any other window (e.g. the read messages window which is the usual way of opening an attachment).

These .part files in my home directory have been annoying annoying me for ages and ages (on more than one machine) but it is only yesterday that I noticed how they were being generated. Previously I had been blaming libreoffice, xfce and anything else...

Can I check if this is a problem just for me or whether other people have it? If it is the latter it might be a bug.

Alternatively, does anyone know enough about this behaviour to suggest what I can do about it? All other temporary files seem to go into /tmp but perhaps I have missed a setting somewhere.

Thanks!

Jacob

[ruwolf]

To me, they seem to be standard names for temporary files.
I think, there should be some setting to choose directory for them, but it is only my guessing...

[debuntudude]

Sorry for replying to old post but was there ever a solution to this? This is happening to my users in Debian and Ubuntu.

[Augie77]

How do you know it is Thunderbird making the .part directory? I am on Tbird 115.10.1 and following the OP procedure I do not get the same results. Double clicking on the newly attached file causes the file to be opened by the appropriate tool. In my case, I attached a .txt file and it was opened and managed by Mousepad. The same for a .png file. I was not able to find a ".part" or "part" directory or file in the home directory.

This seems to be more an Thunderbird issue and not a Debian issue. You can check the about:cache and make certain the storage disk location for Thunderbird is located in .cache.

[Augie77]

Got curious and looked at this a bit more. The problem may be related to what tool handles the file to be opened. If Thunderbird is set to "Preview In Thunderbird" a PDF document then Tbird cache is used. If a viewer/editor type app that is outside of Tbird is used, then it will create a tmp directory or file of some fashion where ever it is set to do so. If the tmp directory or file still remains after closing Tbird or the app, then the app failed to clean up after itself. Not really a Thunderbird issue or Debian issue, in that case.