diff -Naur fetchmail-5.9.6.orig/imap.c fetchmail-5.9.6/imap.c
--- fetchmail-5.9.6.orig/imap.c	Mon Dec 31 14:40:11 2001
+++ fetchmail-5.9.6/imap.c	Tue Jan  1 14:55:49 2002
@@ -486,19 +486,26 @@
 	 * just after deletion.
 	 */
 	ok = 0;
-	if (deletions && expunge_period != 1)
+	if (deletions) {
 	    ok = internal_expunge(sock);
-	count = -1;
-	if (do_idle)
-	    ok = imap_idle(sock);
-	if (ok || gen_transact(sock, "NOOP"))
-	{
-	    report(stderr, GT_("re-poll failed\n"));
-	    return(ok);
+	    if (ok)
+	    {
+		report(stderr, GT_("expunge failed\n"));
+		return(ok);
+	    }
 	}
-	else if (count == -1)	/* no EXISTS response to NOOP/IDLE */
-	{
-	    count = 0;
+
+	/*
+	 * count is already set here by the last EXPUNGE or any other imap
+	 * command which returned EXISTS on detecting mailbox modification.
+	 */
+	if (count == 0 && do_idle) {
+	    ok = imap_idle(sock);
+	    if (ok)
+	    {
+		report(stderr, GT_("re-poll failed\n"));
+		return(ok);
+	    }
 	}
 	if (outlevel >= O_DEBUG)
 	    report(stdout, GT_("%d messages waiting after re-poll\n"), count);