Email Star Outlook Flag Date Option?

[rgremban]

Hello,

In Aqua-mail, when I start an email, it stars it in Outlook marked as "tomorrow".

In Outlook, when I click on the flag, it marks it as "Today".

In Thunderbird, which I use as my primary install, when I click the star icon it marks it as "No Date".

When I click the star icon in Aqua-mail, it flags it in Outlook (as above), but it does not star it in Thunderbird.

When I click the star icon in Thunderbird, it flags it in Outlook (as above), but it does not star it in Aqua-mail.

Is there any way to change the specific type of flag that is given to a message (so I can set it as Today or No Date) to, hopefully, resolve this so all my email clients properly display their flags/stars?

This is over an Exchange email (via Office 365) for Outlook, and IMAP for Thunderbird and Aqua-mail.

Thank you!

[StR]

First, regarding the issue with you not seeing starred status between Aquamail and Thunderbird.

I just checked that the toggle of the starred status ("Flagged") is reflected in the other as soon as the other e-mail client synchronizes. (If you have IMAP Push in Aquamail and "Allow immediate message notifications when new messages arrive" in Thunderbird, and the IMAP server supports IMAP IDLE, then it happens almost immediately. Otherwise, as soon as the scheduled sync happens. You can also sync the account/folder manually.) And I believe both e-mail clients in question correctly implement the standard (RFC 4551) that defines how the flags are set and transmitted between the servers and all clients.

So, I suspect that you might not be waiting long enough (or not synchronizing the client in which you expect to see observe the change manually). Alternatively, something might not be implemented in the IMAP server correctly...


Now, regarding the date associated with the \Flagged (starred).
I am not using Outlook, but in both Aquamail and Thunderbird (IMAP), tagging a message with a star does not do anything date-wise.

AFAIK, in IMAP standard ( https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3501 ), \Flagged (which is what set when tag a message with a star) does not have any date attribute.
I see that in Exchange, however, there is an attribute "FlagCompleteTime".
So, e-mail clients connecting via IMAP have no way of receiving or transmitting any date information. So, whatever date is associated with the "star" (if any) is would be the initiative of the server, and then Outlook (via one of the Exchange protocols (EWS?) ) would get that strange date.

How Outlook itself sets the date, - I have no idea.


Having said that, now, I am thinking that some of the later RFCs that define extensions to the original IMAP 4rev1, might have defined the attributes (e.g. I see RFC4466 defines some messages metadata: append-opts     = [SP flag-list] [SP date-time] *(SP append-ext) - but I am not sure which metadata that includes...
Kostya when he gets to here (probably tomorrow) will have more information about this, and he would definitely know how Aquamail is programmed to behave with respect to the stars and related dates.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

In Aqua-mail, when I start an email, it stars it in Outlook marked as "tomorrow".

In Outlook, when I click on the flag, it marks it as "Today".

I made it work the way Office 365 did at the time.

These days, Office 365 sets the due date to "today", and I made AquaMail to work the same way in 1.6.4-dev* versions.

You can install the 1.6.4-dev* versions from here on the forum (under "Development builds") or from here:

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/org.kman.AquaMail

When I click the star icon in Aqua-mail, it flags it in Outlook (as above), but it does not star it in Thunderbird.

When I click the star icon in Thunderbird, it flags it in Outlook (as above), but it does not star it in Aqua-mail.

Thunderbird does not support EWS (the native way to connect to Exchange), so you must be using IMAP there.

And this issue came up before, can't find the discussion right now, but basically it looks like Office 365 has trouble propagating "stars" between mail apps that connect using IMAP and those using EWS.

[rgremban]

Thank you for your answers!  My notice of them got lost until I did a search of my email archives today.

So, I suspect that you might not be waiting long enough (or not synchronizing the client in which you expect to see observe the change manually). Alternatively, something might not be implemented in the IMAP server correctly...

I have been waiting and/or doing a refresh.  That's not the problem.  Also, all my notice of types or dates of flags was merely to give hints of where the trouble with Thunderbird may lie.

Thunderbird does not support EWS (the native way to connect to Exchange), so you must be using IMAP there.

And this issue came up before, can't find the discussion right now, but basically it looks like Office 365 has trouble propagating "stars" between mail apps that connect using IMAP and those using EWS.

I had never heard of EWS and thought all was done through IMAP.  Apparently, Aqua-Mail can use either EWS or IMAP.  If so, can it be made to connect to Office 365 via IMAP, and would this solve my problem of stars propagating to Thunderbird?  How would I do that?  On my phone, under accounts, I have "AquaMail (Exchange)" and "Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync", but have been unable to get at the details, either through Aqua-Mail settings or there.

I'll try 1.6.4-dev* or wait for the release of 1.6.4, but it sounds like the problem is between EWS and IMAP.

[StR]

I had never heard of EWS and thought all was done through IMAP.  Apparently, Aqua-Mail can use either EWS or IMAP.  If so, can it be made to connect to Office 365 via IMAP, and would this solve my problem of stars propagating to Thunderbird?  How would I do that?  On my phone, under accounts, I have "AquaMail (Exchange)" and "Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync", but have been unable to get at the details, either through Aqua-Mail settings or there.

You cannot change the type of the account, but you can create a new account under Aquamail (and once you see it is working, remove the previous one).
When you just start creating a new account in Aquamail, it asks you for the type of account [connection]: Google, Internet mail (IMAP, POP3), Exchange (EWS). Choose IMAP, and then you might need to choose "Manual" on the next screen, - to manually enter IMAP and SMTP settings for that account.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Yes, you can try removing the account from AquaMail and adding it back as "Internet Mail" and this will default to IMAP.

Please use Manual (after entering your email and password) and review the settings, as mentioned by StR above.

Incoming, IMAP: outlook.office365.com - SSL strict - port 993

Outgoing, SMTP: outlook.office365.com - STARTTLS strict - port 587