Wipe an imap folder without having to sync everything

Question

My local ISP has mixed POP/IMAP boxes and a bad habit of moving possible spam to a folder on IMAP which means that i have to configure thunderbird to use IMAP instead of POP and die from boredom because until it syncs the entire folder.. last time there were more than six thousand emails and that takes a while even if you're on broadband

So my question is if there's an email client or a method that can help me to wipe the offending folder without having to sync it.

Answer 1

Just set the IMAP to only download headers. That should go fairly quick even if there are several thousand emails. Remember to "purge" the deleted emails after you delete them - otherwise they are still in your mailbox in IMAP.

Answer 2

As a side-note to Sanjay's post:

Manually purge deleted items

To permanently delete the items marked for deletion, do the following:

1. Click a folder in your IMAP e-mail account.

2. On the Edit menu, point to

3. Purge Deleted Messages. Do one of the following:

• Click Purge Marked Items in "folder". Only items marked for deletion in the folder that you are in are purged from the IMAP mail server.
• Click Purge Marked Items in "e-mail account". All items marked for deletion in any folder for this IMAP e-mail account are purged from the IMAP mail server.
• Click Purge Marked Items in All Accounts. All items marked for deletion in any folder for any IMAP e-mail account are purged from the IMAP mail server.