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Done all steps suggested within How to completely remove Thunderbird? and still end locating:

locate -e thunderbird
/usr/share/app-install/desktop/thunderbird:thunderbird.desktop
/usr/share/app-install/icons/thunderbird.png
/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/scalable/apps-extra/thunderbird-icon.svg
/var/cache/apt/archives/thunderbird-gnome-support_1%3a45.5.1+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/thunderbird-locale-de_1%3a45.5.1+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/thunderbird-locale-en-gb_1%3a45.5.1+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/thunderbird-locale-en-us_1%3a45.5.1+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/thunderbird-locale-en_1%3a45.5.1+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/thunderbird-locale-hr_1%3a45.5.1+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/thunderbird-locale-sr_1%3a45.5.1+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/thunderbird_1%3a45.5.1+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb
/var/lib/app-info/icons/ubuntu-xenial-main/64x64/thunderbird_thunderbird.png

Is it safe to remove these files manually in the event you actually want to do fresh install of Thunderbird afterwards? This is my last attempt to get Thunderbird to work on my Ubuntu driven system since one of the mail boxes simply doesn't pull new messages using IMAP protocol no matter what I did in settings.

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  • 1
    You also might want to remove ~/.thunderbird, where all your mail boxes & data are stored. Probably the most (and only) relevant one in case of unfixable errors.
    – Jacob Vlijm
    Jan 3, 2017 at 19:55
  • If really uninstalling a package better to use dpkg with purge. But it may also uninstall lots of other files which you may want to keep. You can just reinstall. But backup your profile in ~/.thunderbird as mentioned above and just delete or rename it.
    – oldfred
    Jan 3, 2017 at 20:00
  • Thanks. Done that more than once and each time, and for what ever reasons the problem is same. One would think, hmm it could be your email server, but I pull via IMAP same mailbox on other machines and devices (mainly OS X, iOS and Android based) and have no problem. Thunderbird is stuck on 11/21/2016 like a super glue. Hence why I asked how I can remove any trace of Thunderbird and see if real fresh install makes a difference. So after removing it all these I listed above are only files left, hence my ask still stands, am I safe to remove these file or not.
    – Zini Da Kazem
    Jan 3, 2017 at 22:01

1 Answer 1

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  • The stuff in /usr/share/app-install is actually part of the package app-install-data as you can see in the output of dpkg-query -S /usr/share/app-install/*thunderbird*.

  • /var/lib/app-info is generated by or for the same package.

  • /usr/share/icons/HighContrast/scalable/apps-extra/thunderbird-icon.svg is part of gnome-accessibility-themes.

  • /var/lib/apt/archives/ contains package archive files you downloaded in the past via Apt and that haven't been cleaned out yet.

You can remove all of these without serious consequences because they're either

  • program icons or launchers related to Thunderbird though not owned by Thunderbird packages or
  • cache data that will be re-downloaded or regenerated on demand,

though I don't think it's wise to corrupt packages to free a few meagre kilobytes and inodes. If you want to clear the Apt archive either manually or automatically there are cleaner, more elegant ways to achieve that (which is a topic for a different question).

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