Re: [Evolution] Set folders trash and junk/spam manually

[Paul Smith <paul mad-scientist us>]

On Mon, 2009-04-20 at 18:45 +0200, Oliver Horn wrote:
> > Trash is done the way it is because that's how IMAP is defined. Deletion
> > of a message is done in two stages, a) mark the message as \Deleted, b)
> > at some later date Expunge the folder. Other mailers do this
> > differently, mainly because they try to map message deletion onto the
> > mental model of file deletion on desktops, i.e. move the object to a
> > Trash folder and once in a while empty it. However doing this on IMAP is
> > inefficient (because the message is being copied -- note that IMAP has
> > no "move" operation) and can in rare cases block the user because of
> > quota limitations (leading to a situation where you can't delete your
> > mail to free up space because your quota won't allow it to be copied).
> >
> > Evo follows the IMAP model closely. Deleted messages remain in place and
> > are not copied anywhere. Trash is simply a virtual (or search) folder
> > that shows all the \Deleted messages wherever they happen to be. This
> > has a nice side-effect: when you undelete a message Evo simply removes
> > the \Deleted flag. It doesn't need to remember where the message used to
> > be and move it back as other mailers do. Furthermore, Evo also applies
> > this model to other mailstores even if they don't use IMAP.
>
> Ok, before I report a bug at this I wanna describe it a bit more, maybe
> there are some options I didn't recognize.

I don't think so, unless you mean options on your online mail account,
which is not something we would know about.

I think you just haven't read the excellent explanation of how Evo
implements IMAP that was provided carefully enough, or else haven't
grasped its significance.

To be clear: there are TWO DIFFERENT methods of managing deleted/junk
email at work here.  Evolution uses one method, described above, and
your web-based mail client (I assume that's what you mean by "online")
uses a different method.  Both are valid under the IMAP spec.  However,
because they are not the same you get the behavior you observe.

If what you're asking is whether there is an option in your webmail
client to make it work like Evo, then we don't know but it seems
doubtful.  However, I think you should consider filing some bugs against
your webmail client for "misbehavior", as I discuss below.

If what you're asking is if there is an option in Evo to make it work
like your web-based mail client, then the answer is "no".  The only
reasonable potential enhancement I could see would be to add a new
feature to Evo that would allow the user to designate folder(s) as
"trash" or "junk", and treat every message there as if it were \Deleted
or junk even if they weren't.  That would allow changes made via the
webmail client to be recognized by Evo.  If that were the case then you
could probably create a filter in Evo that causes deleted email to be
moved to the "Trash" folder and junk email to be moved to the "Junk"
folder, and get more-or-less the behavior you're looking for (although
at the expense of a good bit of efficiency).

> I have two computer, both with evolution, both using the same IMAP
> account. There are a trash and a junk folder provided, which I can't
> delete. As I said evolution on both computers created another trash and
> another junk folder which are virtual as you described parallel to that
> I subscribed trash and junk which are provided.
>
> By deleting a mail from inbox on pc1 this mail disappears there and
> appears in the virtual trash evolution created on pc1, the trash folder
> I subscribed is empty. Now I check my mails online and the mail still
> appears in inbox, trash there is empty.

Correct, because the webmail client doesn't have any concept of virtual
folders and doesn't appear to do anything special with the IMAP \Deleted
flag.  That's a bug in your webmail client IMO: it should show some kind
of special icon or something (strike through?) for messages that have
the \Deleted flag set.

> By clearing the virtual trash of evolution on pc1/pc2 the mail gets
> deleted from online inbox and the virtual trash on pc2/pc1. It doesn't
> appear anywhere now.

Correct, because this really deletes the mail (called "expunging").  Now
those bits are actually gone from your mailbox.

> Second try: Deleting a mail from online inbox. Mail disappears from all
> inboxes and appears in the online trash and the subscribed trash
> folders. But though there is no option to clear the subscribed trash
> folders I can only delete the message it contains and after that clear
> the virtual trash on one of the clients.

I didn't really understand your last sentence.  However, if the mail
appears (to Evo) in the subscribed trash folder then that seems to mean
that the webmail client is not setting the IMAP \Deleted flag on these
messages, and instead is just copying them to a new folder, named Trash.
I believe this is also a bug in your webmail client.

To Evo, this just looks like any other copy of email from one folder to
another.


As you say, Junk is much harder due to deficiencies in the IMAP spec
dealing with SPAM.