Deleted messages via IMAP account--files still in MailDir folders?

[doni49]

I use Thunderbird to access my IMAP server. I deleted a BUNCH of messages last night. I've got TB config'd to delete messages immediately.

When I deleted these messages last night, they no longer showed up in TB. But when I look at the maildirs, I still see all of the text files for those messages.

WHY?

Thanks!

I copy/pasted the following from my CPanel account.

Operating system Linux
Service Status Click to View
Kernel version 2.4.21-47.0.1.ELsmp
Machine Type i686
Apache version 1.3.37 (Unix)
PERL version 5.8.0
Path to PERL /usr/bin/perl
Path to sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail
Installed Perl Modules Click to View
PHP version 5.1.6
MySQL version 5.0.27-standard
cPanel Build 10.9.0-CURRENT 138
Theme cPanel X v2.6.0
Documentation Click to View
cPanel Pro 1.0 (RC36)

 

[doni49]

Update

There seems to be some kind of delay between the time I delete the messages via TBird and the time the text files are removed from the folder. I checked filemanager again this morning and they're gone.

So the timeline is:

Wednesday - Delete Messages via TBird;
Thursday - Notice that the files are still there when viewing via CP's filemanager;
Friday - files no longer appear when viewing in filemanager.​

I when I noticed this on Thurday night (last night), I used filemanger's "Edit File" link to open several of these text messages and they showed the headers and message bodies of the messages that I had deleted Wednesday night.