Deleting Emails (IMAP)

[verwon]

Originally Posted by puzzlegal

And as I've noted, the Pre client isn't very flexible, and there doesn't seem to be any straightforward way for me to enable IMAP for my primary email account without either

1) having my Pre cluttered with too much mail
or
2) having stuff deleted (or moved to the trash folder) on the server, and risking not having it downloaded properly onto my home computer, where I sort, store, and archive my email.

So despite all those advantages (some of which I'd appreicate) I don't think I can reasonably use it.

So, no patches. (I just checked) and no rumors of better flexibility on Web OS 2? Sigh.

I made a post telling you how you can use IMAP and not have all the mail deleted on the server, so you can still have it all waiting for you on your computer email client.

[COS777]

I think Verwon has a good suggestion of changing where the deleted messages are stored. You can subscribe to that folder on you computer email client and decide what to do with those emails from there (archive/delete).

On a side note: is it necessary that you archive email only on your computer? One of the advantages of IMAP is that the server is where messages are stored. I have Thunderbird keep a copy of my messages on my computer for off-line use (which is pretty rare that I need it), but the server is where I keep things primarily. Just another variation...

[verwon]

If you use gmail, the other mail folders are automatically imported to your computer client, when you set up the account. Thus, you will automatically have access to the All Mail folder, so if you set that as the folder where the deleted messages on your phone go, you'll easily have access to them and can then sort them, as needed.

On your Pre, just go into the settings for that account, scroll down to where it shows where the deleted items go to the trash folder, tap it and change where it sends them. It is a solution that just takes seconds to implement.

I always used it when I was using the Pre.

[puzzlegal]

Originally Posted by verwon

I made a post telling you how you can use IMAP and not have all the mail deleted on the server, so you can still have it all waiting for you on your computer email client.

This one?

Originally Posted by verwon

In the Pre settings for email, you can select where you want any deleted items to go.

I didn't like having it delete items in my actual Gmail account, so what I did was set the deleted items to go to my All Mail folder, rather than to the trash. That way, I could go in online, later, and decided what I wanted to archive and what was actual trash.

This was using it as IMAP, so you CAN change where the default actions send your mail, it doesn't have to go to the trash.

You do that by changing the folder that "trash" looks at? Then what, I have two different folders on the server, but I only know how to create "rules" on the Mac for the inboxes, not for random other folders. (I'm actually in the midst of testing a second incoming folder now, but either it's a total failure, or that mailing list has been completely quiet for the last couple of weeks.)

Maybe, but I'm dubious.

Originally Posted by COS777

I think Verwon has a good suggestion of changing where the deleted messages are stored. You can subscribe to that folder on you computer email client and decide what to do with those emails from there (archive/delete).

On a side note: is it necessary that you archive email only on your computer? One of the advantages of IMAP is that the server is where messages are stored. I have Thunderbird keep a copy of my messages on my computer for off-line use (which is pretty rare that I need it), but the server is where I keep things primarily. Just another variation...

I've had to move email providers several times in the past few years, either because they did stuff that was problematic (like automtically bounce messages I wanted to get) or because they went out of business. So yes, I want to keep my own copy of my archives.

(The one that went out of business did support an easy path to move archives to another service, which was nice of them, but I don't know that I trust that to always be available.)

[puzzlegal]

Originally Posted by verwon

If you use gmail, the other mail folders are automatically imported to your computer client, when you set up the account. Thus, you will automatically have access to the All Mail folder, so if you set that as the folder where the deleted messages on your phone go, you'll easily have access to them and can then sort them, as needed.

On your Pre, just go into the settings for that account, scroll down to where it shows where the deleted items go to the trash folder, tap it and change where it sends them. It is a solution that just takes seconds to implement.

I always used it when I was using the Pre.

I'm not actually using Gmail, I'm using Fastmail, but I think IMAP works pretty much the same on both. It is possible that the mailing list I'm testing has been quiet for 2 weeks. One reason I'm creating a separate folder on the server for it is that it has the annoying feature of being quiet for a long time and then sending scores of messages all at once, making it hard to manage and keep up with.

But since I want everything from this group to live in the same folder, I don't need to have "rules" work on it. I do need "rules" on my primary email feed, and I think those only work from the inbox, unless I manually trigger them.

[verwon]

There is no need to create rules on your Mac to do this. If you're using gmail, there is already an all mail folder, just let your Mac import all the mail folders and when you use it and it syncs, it will automatically pull in all the emails that are in it.

[COS777]

Originally Posted by puzzlegal

I've had to move email providers several times in the past few years, either because they did stuff that was problematic (like automtically bounce messages I wanted to get) or because they went out of business. So yes, I want to keep my own copy of my archives.

That's why I switched to Gmail. I wanted an email address that wasn't tied to my ISP because the domains are always changing. I figured Google is probably the leading candidate to be around for a long time.

Originally Posted by puzzlegal

I'm not actually using Gmail, I'm using Fastmail, but I think IMAP works pretty much the same on both.

Well...Gmail would put your emails in "All Mail" automatically which would probably solve your problem...

[puzzlegal]

Originally Posted by verwon

There is no need to create rules on your Mac to do this. If you're using gmail, there is already an all mail folder, just let your Mac import all the mail folders and when you use it and it syncs, it will automatically pull in all the emails that are in it.

But it just pulls it into an undifferentiated "all mail" folder. I have my mail sorted into dozens of folders within Mac Mail, and mostly I find this useful. For one thing, it makes it easy to see if there's anything important that is unread, as most of the mail I get is from mailing lists, and is never urgent, and those get sorted into folders by mailing list.

Since the inbox (or any other "live" IMAP folders) keeps in synch with the server version, I clean out old stuff from it. My archives are created by the rules that move or copy notes to local folders.

I realize this is a little convoluted, and it was created back when I used POP3 exclusively, but it would be awkward to change now, and I mostly find the multiple folders quite helpful in finding stuff and keeping track of what needs to be read.

[puzzlegal]

Originally Posted by COS777

That's why I switched to Gmail. I wanted an email address that wasn't tied to my ISP because the domains are always changing. I figured Google is probably the leading candidate to be around for a long time.

I bought a domain for that. One of the problems with gmail is that it doesn't really play nicely with your own domain, they want to tell the world that your mail is being sent by them.

I don't use my ISP for email, but even so, I've had issues with other providers as well.

Originally Posted by COS777

Well...Gmail would put your emails in "All Mail" automatically which would probably solve your problem...

The other problem with gmail is that when it comes right down to it, I don't trust Google. Yes, they will probably be around for a while, but will they continue to not be evil? They know a heck of a lot about me already from my search habits. Do I want them to also know everying I write to every other person? For now, I think not.

[COS777]

If I'm reading this correctly, you have your rules on your computer? Why not put the rules/filters on the server with your folders on the server as well? Have your computer check all folders and have your Pre just check your inbox. That would prevent the mailing lists from going to your Pre if that is what is cluttering it.

I guess I'm not that hostile towards Google. They provide me a good service for free and I don't think I'm important enough for them to care what I send. I would worry about the government reading my emails before Google.

[puzzlegal]

Oh, I love Google, I'm just slightly paranoid.

The rules are on my computer partly because they've always been there (from back in the days when my computer was my primary spam filter) but also because I want to be able to delete stuff from the server without deleting it from my mail. Maybe server space is now cheap enough that I don't need to do that. I have a lot of rules, and it would be a nuisance to re-create them on the server.

I suppose some of the rules probably don't come up so often that I really need a rule. Like the rule that bounces emails sent to another person with a similar address that I get from time to time. (Some have been quite personal, and I decided it was more polite to "bounce" them than to write back and say the address was wrong.)

Maybe I'm just being overly conservative. It's worked for the past decade, so why should I change now? Other than the abilty to use IMAP on the Pre, I don't see any advantage to changing, though, and there are always potentical risks when you rearrange a lot of data.


By the way, I don't want to prevent the mailing lists from going to my Pre, they make terrific subway reading. I just don't want the messages I've already read to stay there. I usually read and delete mailing list messages from the Pre. It's just this one mailing list that will send out 30 messages with dates up to a month old that go out together that I wanted to folder-ize on the server, so that I can deal with it on the Pre.