Is there a limit to the number of PMs in the Inbox/Outbox?

[The Cryptovator]

I couldn't find an answer to this question with the search option, so I asked theymos directly, and I'm posting the answer here because I believe that this question is also of interest to some other members of the forum.
Theymos replied that there is no strict limit on the number of messages we can have in the inbox, but warned that the PM page will become very slow if we have more than 30 pages of PMs and suggested that it is best to prune them periodically.

That hasn’t come into my mind because there are a lot of threads that are more than 200 pages. So even if your PM list becomes more than 200 pages, it shouldn’t be an issue. You may visit the wall overser thread that has more than 3600 pages. That’s why I wasn’t concerned about the PM pages.

However, as theymos said, it’s normal behaviour if the page becomes more loaded; the loading time would increase. Unless you delete your PM, then it will keep increasing. For me, I try to delete PMs that aren't important. So it will reduce time to find necessary PM and loading time as well.

[xenomorfo]

Personally, I have like 40-45 pages or Inbox/Outbox PM's. If we do the math it's like 1700-1800 messages combined (20 PM per page). And I have seen others saying, they have much much much higher amounts of PM's saved up.

Quoting for visibility, just look below. Man that's a lotttttt of PM we are talking about. I want to believe it has no limits. And even if it did, it's set so high that we can't reach it normally, unless we use some tools to spam the PM inbox/outbox.

Oh my god, so many messages! Now I wanted to ask something that I haven't found an answer to. I'm sure you all know what it is.
Let's say I have a lot of messages. Is there a way to save them myself and delete the ones in the forum? I can't figure out if I can do that or not.

[DYING_S0UL]

Oh my god, so many messages! Now I wanted to ask something that I haven't found an answer to. I'm sure you all know what it is.
Let's say I have a lot of messages. Is there a way to save them myself and delete the ones in the forum? I can't figure out if I can do that or not.

Yes you can save them if you want! Either ask theymos or use this script from TryNinja! (As for the deleting part I didn't understand your question there)...

The script works, as I had used it myself in the past.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5481421.msg63489687#msg63489687

Here's a quick one I just made.

https://gist.github.com/ninjastic/bc568895778132e1414564147d3a9aaf

1. Open the the forum on any page.
2. Open your browser's developer tools.
3. Go to the Console tab.
4. Paste and run the code. Do not close the tab and avoid using the forum in the meanwhile so you don't get rate limited.

After finishing it, a file called pm.json will be downloaded with the format:

Code:

[
  {
    "type": "inbox",
    "title": "Here are my coins",
    "date": "2010-03-22, 12:33:53",
    "to": "TryNinja",
    "toUrl": "https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=557798",
    "responded": true,
    "message": "Hello TryNinja,<br><br>I will be sending my coins to you tomorrow, thank you <img src=\"https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif\" alt=\"Smiley\" border=\"0\"><br><br>Best,<br>satoshi",
    "author": "satoshi",
    "authorUrl": "https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3"
  }
]

Didn't hard test it, so idk... Worked for my inbox/outbox.

[philipma1957]

Since they don't complain, it means things will still be working well after even after 200th page.

After page 500 everything works fine.

I am 500 sent 800 received.

Will double check it

Could be more or less.


Edit 653 pages sent

And 835 pages  received

[OgNasty]

I am at 1399 pages of PMs received and 1108 pages of PMs sent.

I can tell you that it doesn't run great.  There are times when it is nearly unusable, but most of the time it is about a 20 second delay to access my inbox.

If the day comes that I reach a limit in the number of PMs I've received, I will let folks know.  Although these days I send/receive much less PM traffic than I did 10+ years ago so there are probably folks out there with larger inboxes (maybe?).

[Vod]

I am at 1399 pages of PMs received and 1108 pages of PMs sent.

Since I never deleted anything, I used to be near those numbers.   Then something happened to them -- hoping to get them restored. 

[Daniel91]

I am at 1399 pages of PMs received and 1108 pages of PMs sent.

Since I never deleted anything, I used to be near those numbers.   Then something happened to them -- hoping to get them restored. 

Really? What happened? You lost those messages? Can you get them back?
Luckily I'm still a long way from that numbers. I have a much smaller number of messages in my inbox so I won't have to worry about losing my messages or having the Inbox/Outbox page loading slowly for a long time.
OgNasty, have you considered theymos' suggestion to prune them periodically or get all your PMs with TryNinja's user script?
Here's 1 good suggestion from theymos:
If anyone wants an mbox dump of all of your incoming/outgoing PMs, I don't mind producing them for people once per year. I do it for myself periodically, and it works really well in Thunderbird: the PMs appear exactly like emails, and you can search them, etc. If you want an mbox dump, PM me either:
 - Your PGP public key, and the email to send the PMs to as a PGP-encrypted attachment. Or,
 - An acknowledgement that you have 7-Zip or gpg, and the email to send the PMs to as an attachment. Then I'll email you the symmetrically-encrypted file and PM you the decryption key. Or,
 - An acknowledgement that I'm going to send it to you by PMing you a link to mega.nz or something, which is probably less secure.

I've long been planning to make PM exporting an automated process, but it's a bit tricky to set up because it involves large files, a relatively slow process, and highly sensitive information. And since not that many users have tons of PMs, it's not been a high priority.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5570043.msg66240630#msg66240630

[xenomorfo]

Yes you can save them if you want! Either ask theymos or use this script from TryNinja! (As for the deleting part I didn't understand your question there)...

The script works, as I had used it myself in the past.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5481421.msg63489687#msg63489687

thank you so much dear DYING_S0UL i will try to use it even if i am really stupid to use these computer things, i gave you a lot of credit for your help you were very very kind.
Tomorrow I'll try to get on the computer and see if i can.

[AVE5]

Theymos replied that there is no strict limit on the number of messages we can have in the inbox, but warned that the PM page will become very slow if we have more than 30 pages of PMs and suggested that it is best to prune them periodically.

Maybe thought that the bitcointalk forum was like the mobile or cellular networks where volume of SMS is determined by the message storage capacity where user's is authenticated by the Subscriber Identity Module?
Sure in this type of communication networks, user's SMS Inbox usually have limited volume that it traffics inflows of SMS and when the space is insufficient to enable certain lengths of messages, you'll need to delete some messages to allow incoming messages flow in else, you'll experience delay or incomplete messages in the inbox if incoming messages is lengthy.
Maybe this is likely applicable to the forum inbox too which is what Theymos meant in his reply.

[OgNasty]

I am at 1399 pages of PMs received and 1108 pages of PMs sent.

…

OgNasty, have you considered theymos' suggestion to prune them periodically or get all your PMs with TryNinja's user script?
Here's 1 good suggestion from theymos:
If anyone wants an mbox dump of all of your incoming/outgoing PMs, I don't mind producing them for people once per year. I do it for myself periodically, and it works really well in Thunderbird: the PMs appear exactly like emails, and you can search them, etc. If you want an mbox dump, PM me either:
 - Your PGP public key, and the email to send the PMs to as a PGP-encrypted attachment. Or,
 - An acknowledgement that you have 7-Zip or gpg, and the email to send the PMs to as an attachment. Then I'll email you the symmetrically-encrypted file and PM you the decryption key. Or,
 - An acknowledgement that I'm going to send it to you by PMing you a link to mega.nz or something, which is probably less secure.

I've long been planning to make PM exporting an automated process, but it's a bit tricky to set up because it involves large files, a relatively slow process, and highly sensitive information. And since not that many users have tons of PMs, it's not been a high priority.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5570043.msg66240630#msg66240630

No, I haven’t considered the options that theymos has made available for a couple reasons. 1) I don’t want to be responsible for my PMs. Right now it is handled by Bitcointalk and I’m fine with that. 2) Messing with PM scripts seems like a great way to accidentally delete your PMs. That would be embarrassing.

[TryNinja]

No, I haven’t considered the options that theymos has made available for a couple reasons. 1) I don’t want to be responsible for my PMs. Right now it is handled by Bitcointalk and I’m fine with that. 2) Messing with PM scripts seems like a great way to accidentally delete your PMs. That would be embarrassing.

FYI, at least for my script which some people recommended, it is *impossible* for it to accidentally delete PMs. It just goes from page to page, parsing (reading) the elements from the page.

[Vod]

Messing with PM scripts seems like a great way to accidentally delete your PMs. That would be embarrassing.

FYI, at least for my script which some people recommended, it is *impossible* for it to accidentally delete PMs. It just goes from page to page, parsing (reading) the elements from the page.

Maybe he's just 99.9% implying I accidently deleted staff PMs from my BPIP days.      FYI, at least dealing with APIs and no direct database access, there is no way any programmer could make a mistake with a different endpoint and different action(s) required between READING and DELETING.  Ignorance is embarassing.

Really? What happened? You lost those messages? Can you get them back?

There is a Meta thread I started about it.   Hoping to get them back, but this is not the thread to discuss.