> Furthermore, it is completely without credibility to su...

[mdk]

> Furthermore, it is completely without credibility to suggest that the client can delete items from the IMAP client, but they will never be actually deleted (for the purposes of space allotment) until that customer logs into the web client and deletes the files there (which magically re-appear after several days and a complaint to you guys).

Compare it to placing items into a bin (compostable or recycle or land-fill) inside your home, and then later emptying the bin into a larger bin outside of your home. Until you take the items outside, they still are inside.

So, deleting a message, using IMAP on your computer, or IMAP via Shaw WebMail, only moves the message within your "quota" of disk-space (stored on Shaw's mail-server) -- at any time, the message can be retrieved from the "Deleted Items" folder, and moved to a different IMAP folder -- it is not "gone".

Using any IMAP-client on your computer, try selecting/highlighting a message (or multiple messages), holding-down the SHIFT key, and then clicking the DELETE button (or pressing the DELETE button on your keyboard). You might get a pop-up worded like "do you really want to permanently delete?".  Clicking OK should free-up some space within your quota.

This "SHIFT-DELETE" combination also works within Shaw WebMail.

[vm2]

II gather from your handle that you are an expert on the subject, and probably employed by Shaw. 

In any event, I will reply to your comment, first, as a client of shaw:  An email is sent indicating that the quota is about to be exceeded.  Work is done on a POP client and nothing is wrong with the settings and there is nothing close to the 1 gig limit to be found.  Next, the Webmail client is used (not through a phone interface) and it is discovered that there is a SENT folder that has 925 megs in it.  In IMAP is added to this email account on the client desktop, and the SENT folder is linked and downloaded.  This content is then moved to a local SENT folder.  The items in the SENT folder show a big red X through them.  Eventually. after a few days,  this folder shows as empty.  But the quota doesn't drop. 

Next, the webmail client is used, and it shows nothing much in any of the folders that are visible, including all the folders I have highlighted above in great detail.  Hoewever, the empty SENT folder shows 0 messages and 925 meg used. 

You inform me (with authority, I presume) the the webmail client is an IMAP client.  Furthermore, you inform me that there is a 'Deleted Items' folder that held all these missing emails.   I can, with authority, tell you that there is not 'Deleted Items' folder on that web client.  There is only a Trash folder, which was empty.  Since you are not aware of that important information, then I am free to challenge your assertion that the webmail client is ONLY an IMAP client.  I suspect that it is a client with more capability than any standard IMAP client. I stand to be corrected.

In any event, the obvious solution you presented above was not available to me simply because none of the folders had any content to delete. 

The only reason I am responding to your comment at all is because the implication is that it was my lack of understanding of the workings of the system that prevented me from executing a solution.  This was not the case at all.  It was clearly a problem with the way the server OR the webmail client was behaving.  Either way, please consider this:

Does it take an EXPERT with deep understanding of the client and server architecture to reduce the usage below the allotted 1gig?
Is that considered (by you experts) as a reasonable requirement for the average user of emails on SHAW?

I have no objection to 'expert' answers.  I have a serious objection to products and companies who sell them requiring that their clients need an expert to solve a problem that they impose on their clients.

[Longknown]

I need immediate help.  Been getting those quota messages regularly, and regularly have been deleting and deleting from the Webmail site.  Today, after another quota message, I could see that I was still at 94%.  I bit the bullet and deleted a lot of messages that I really wanted to save, emptying the trash several times.  As I worked on deleting, the usage amount was climbing, rather than lowering.  I am now at 100% of my quota after deleting 100's of messages.  I am unable to use my email because I have "exceeded my quota." I am working from home during this time and its imperative that I am able to use my email!  

[Longknown]

More info: the total size of all of my folders is 619 MB.  Yet my Shaw Webmail indicates that I am currently using 100% - 1000 of 1000 MB. Ridiculous!

[vm2]

Sorry you are being screwed, Mate.  I thought engineering would actually take a look at it, at their leisure, and fix it.  Apparently not.  I am not surprised.
What I can tell you, though, that might or might not help:  As a backstop, I seem to recall that the 1gig limit is on each email account.  You could add another account with a different email address, and let your contacts know that you need to use that one in the short run.  Next, if you are using a smartphone or any other client that is IMAP, there is probably some syncing criterion that is holding up the show:  The ones you delete are going into the trash, which is another folder.  But these other clients are trying to sync all those files, first from the original folder, then into a 'deleted' folder (I forget its name).  Even if you empty the trash folder, it is probably holding these emails in some limbo while it synchronizes as the transactions between the server and each of the imap devices (at least that is my present theory).  What I noted was that, after several days, the empty trash folder refilled with the missing items.  When I deleted them again, it finally settled down and finished deleting everything.

So all my rambling is to say you might remove all the imap clients from the server (I am not sure exactly how that is done).  That way, there is only the webmail client connected.  At that point, who knows, the server might finally release the emails and delete them for good. 

This is all guess work, because I didn't design the IMAP server.  But it is reasonable to presume that there is a relational database involved, and transactions are driving the changes to it.  The transaction rules could easily be getting in the way. 

In any event, I doubt there is anyone working for Shaw who has the detailed knowledge of how the thing is built to actually solve the problem, and we aren't interesting enough for them to buy a solution to the problem.  You are going to have to find a kludge until the problem (eventually) resolves itself.

[shaw-tony]

@Longknown that is certainly odd and I'd be happy to help investigate. Just to make sure, you've also deleted your sent messages and any email containing large files? Can you test if you are able to receive/send any emails to yourself at this time through https://webmail.shaw.ca/

[Gordon1954]

I have had the same problem but discovered that after I archived emails or made certain kinds of deletions, the space was not released until I had completely logged out.  So the emails had disappeared from the system, but the space didn't show as being available.  I just had to make sure that my phone email and other email programs like Thunderbird and any other instances of webmail (for example on my laptop instead of my desktop) were logged out.  Then the space released immediately and showed as available as soon as I logged back in to my mail account. 

Hope this helps.

[CaptBilly]

Same here.

Three weeks now without email.

I have waited on hold and searched the internet for a solution.  I am hours and hours in.

I didn't think I was that stupid and it shouldn't take a genius to access emails

[mdk]

@CaptBilly -- please read the posting on ‎2020-09-13 06:30 PM by @Gordon1954 -- does his solution work for you?

Or, use the My Shaw Portal to create another E-mail ID, which gets you another 1000 MB of storage.

[CaptBilly]

I just don't think that I should need to be so expert about all of this - because I am not.

Portals and archiving correctly is not on my list of things to want to learn and do!

I changed to POP which involves Shaw Webmail less in storing messages.  I will do that on my local machine and use my own back up methods. 

POP can be set to delete messages after they are downloaded to preserve space.

I think that was the help I have been seeking.  For me this was a relatively easy solution.

I sure could not get anyone at Shaw Support to suggest that.  It made me wonder about how conversant Shaw Support is about the whole subject!

Only one day in but that seems to be working in my application.