Daris,
Currently, pro members have space for 60 Personal Messages. The space is limited to 60 because each PM is added to the database file that part of the website. Plain text messages don't take up much room, but a lot of people also add smilies and pictures and this information is collected in binary and encrypted form to take considerable space on the server. Because you can only keep so many messages, you may want to delete the less important ones. Here's how (please click any image to see the full size).
You can delete PMs in a couple of ways. When you receive a PM, have finished reading it and no longer need it, before you close it, click the
Delete this Message box to put a check mark in it and then click the
Delete this Message button.
If you reply to a PM, there are a set of
Additional Options below the message editor that allow you to select or de-select some items - one of the default selected items is to
Save a copy of this message in your Sent Items folder. If you leave that option checked, a copy of your message is saved and adds to your allowed number of PMs.
You may want to delete old messages you have received and don't need anymore, or delete some of the messages you have sent and are stored in your
Sent Items folder. From the main PM list page, select from the drop-down the folder you want to delete messages from.
Then just put a check mark in any of the small boxes next to the messages you want to delete, choose
Delete from the drop-down at the bottom of the list and then click the
Go button.
Also note in that image above that you can download all your PMs to your computer so you can save them for posterity. You can download in 3 formats,
Text being the one for non-geek types.
Please let me know if you (or anyone) has any other questions about PMs. I'd be happy to help.
Jim