Version 1.6.2-dev5.7 - "work in progress", Google Play "beta"

[Kostya Vasilyev]

https://www.aqua-mail.com/download/AquaMail-market-1.6.2-dev5.5.apk

https://www.aqua-mail.com/download/AquaMail-market-1.6.2-dev5.6.apk

https://www.aqua-mail.com/download/AquaMail-market-1.6.2-dev5.7.apk

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+ Fixes in "sender + subject" conversation grouping, improved handling of sent messages

(although there are still some interesting and strange cases, so not sure if this new feature was worth it)

-dev5.6: let's try not applying this "sender + subject" logic to any messages "from" one of our own addresses.

-dev5.6: uploaded to Google Play, "beta", update blocked by Google

-dev5.7: fixed the app's description (Play support objected to the list of languages/translations), looks like it went through, the "update blocked" notice has disappeared.

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+ Исправления в цепочках по "отправителю + теме", более лучшая обработка отправленных

(хотя всё равно остаются интересные и странные сценарии, так что не уверен что эту новую функцию было нужно делать)

-dev5.6: а давайте попробуем не применять этот новый алгоритм к сообщениям "от" наших собственных адресов.

-dev5.6: выложена в Google Play, "beta", обновление заблокировано в Play.

-dev5.7: исправил описание приложения (поддержка Google имела претензии к списку языков/переводов), кажется эта версия "поехала", уведомление о блокировке исчезло.

[Davey126]

Conversation combining by sender+subject seems to be working as intended in Dev5.6. No weirdness detected. There may still be some edge cases but none appeared with my settings cocktail.

While probabky known and not new to this dev cycle, conversation combining with the archive folder option enabled causes sent messages to be shown twice when viewed in the sent folder as the copy in 'all mail' is also shown (and counted).

[StR]

While probabky known and not new to this dev cycle, conversation combining with the archive folder option enabled causes sent messages to be shown twice when viewed in the sent folder as the copy in 'all mail' is also shown (and counted).

That is a feature of Gmail: The label "All mail" becomes a special folder via IMAP that contains duplicates of messages in all other folders (including "Sent"). The solution to that is simple: do not sync/use "All mail" in Aquamail: you already have those messages in Inbox and other folders if you enabled server-side filtering.
https://goo.gl/3nqTgj
 

PS. I really don't see why you'd need to use "All mail" in Aquamail.

[Davey126]

The solution to that is simple: do not sync/use "All mail" in Aquamail: you already have those messages in Inbox and other folders if you enabled server-side filtering.

I am familiar with server-side filtering and use it extensively. Invariably some items do not fit the filters and land in the inbox without secondary labels. There are many scenarios where a message can loose all labels, including "inbox", and only be represented in "All mail". Not to mention this is Gmail's unconfigurable location for archived mail.

PS. I really don't see why you'd need to use "All mail" in Aquamail.

In a perfect world with perfect labeling and a perfect mechanism to detect the actions of imperfect humans there would be no need for "All mail". Until that happens inclusion of "All mail" is not only desirable but essential to get a complete view of all items that fall within sync parameters.

 

[StR]

The solution to that is simple: do not sync/use "All mail" in Aquamail: you already have those messages in Inbox and other folders if you enabled server-side filtering.

I am familiar with server-side filtering and use it extensively. Invariably some items do not fit the filters and land in the inbox without secondary labels. There are many scenarios where a message can loose all labels, including "inbox", and only be represented in "All mail". Not to mention this is Gmail's unconfigurable location for archived mail.

Unless you intentionally delete or archive a message in your server-side filters, how could it happen that a message would "loose all labels, including "inbox" "?

"Archived" means something that you do not access it on everyday basis. You do that once in a while, and then you don't necessarily expect it to have all the same behavior. In fact, you can find it rotten...

[Davey126]

Unless you intentionally delete or archive a message in your server-side filters, how could it happen that a message would "loose all labels, including "inbox" "?

"Archived" means something that you do not access it on everyday basis. You do that once in a while, and then you don't necessarily expect it to have all the same behavior. In fact, you can find it rotten...

With all due respect I suspect you do not use Gmail clients regularly. There are numerous ways to eradicate labels assigned to messages including deleting the label itself. While this may seem silly it's surprisingly easy to do if you believe all items carry another label but in fact some do not. Other mail clients (yes - I am a traitor and use something other that Aqua on occasion when it offers an productivity advantage) can munge labels. I could go on but that's not the point.

You assume Gmail users will have comprehensive server-side filters designed to label every incoming item. While I have do have a number of filters that apply labels or take other actions,  a significant portion of mail arrives unlabeled as it is either transient (read once and discard) or it needs further review to determine what label(s) to apply. Gmail's rich search function makes it viable to simply archive messages that I wish to retain for possible future reference but don't necessarily warrant a label.

I have no interest in over managing my mail through the use of copious filters that also need to be managed. I label (file) items when it makes sense to do so. 90-95% of the remaining items are deleted immediately or within a short time of arriving in the inbox. The remainder end up in "all mail" where I have no problem finding them when needed. This is the way Gmail was designed to work. It's an excellent model. A hybrid of traditional filing and searchable, unstructured data.

Aqua's search and folder alignment capabilities play well with Gmail for the most part. In some cases Aqua does it better (which is why I use it). There are a few things it doesn't handle well which I will continue to point out. As this community is primarily IMAP/POP centric I can understand the reluctance to embrace Gmail's conventions.

That said, the train is coming whether it be Gmail or or some other tool that is more elevated than the previous generation of folder centric mail systems which resemble the Dewey Decimal Classification system in a traditional library. No need to file it when I can simply search using a variety of criteria. 

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: Unless you intentionally delete or archive a message in your server-side filters

I do. Filtering, set up on Gmail web site, for years, with "archive (skip inbox)" all of them.

But that's probably not the use case you're talking about...

[Davey126]

Re: Unless you intentionally delete or archive a message in your server-side filters

I do. Filtering, set up on Gmail web site, for years, with "archive (skip inbox)" all of them.

But that's probably not the use case you're talking about...

Bottom line: omitting All Mail in Aqua yields an incomplete view of Gmail's message repository (including recent/relevant conversations) unless one is absolutely certain every message carries a secondary label. Having acess to a subset of mail may be acceptable and even advantageous to some. It is not for me.

Aqua does a fine job limiting the size of the local database via various sync settings so that's not an issue. Performance remains excellent. Local database <35MB with a 30 day sync window. I have 25,000+ items in all mail that are instantly searchable if the item if interest is not contained in one of the 50+ active folders.

Items under sent mail are reliably duplicated when viewed in the sent folder in Aqua with the archive option enabled. It's an anoyance but I can deal with it. All I was saying. 

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: unless one is absolutely certain every message carries a secondary label

But why wouldn't they?

Each and every incoming message is supposed to be labeled as Inbox (unless filtered into some other label/folder), the only exception I'm aware of is spam.

But that's not unusual, any mail service works this way (if it has spam filtering that is, which most if not all do).

I agree that Aqua's lack of support for Gmail labels is a shortcoming and can be annoying and downright a show-stopper in some usage patterns -- only responding to your specific point.

[Davey126]

Re: unless one is absolutely certain every message carries a secondary label

But why wouldn't they?

Each and every incoming message is supposed to be labeled as Inbox (unless filtered into some other label/folder), the only exception I'm aware of is spam.

Archive a message from the inbox and it looses the inbox label. If no other label has been assigned (by filter or user) it is only representatived in "all mail". Very easy to do given Gmail UX which favors archiving.

But you already know that so we are coming at this from different vantage points.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: Archive a message from the inbox and it looses the inbox label.

Ah, yes, that it does. User action. I thought you meant an "all by itself" scenario, sorry.

[Davey126]

PS. I really don't see why you'd need to use "All mail" in Aquamail.

I'm actually debating the merits of eliminating 'sent' from Aqua sync:

- it is a subset of All Mail which is required for holistic mail management
- Aqua enables the inadvertent removal of hidden 'sent' label which is difficult to replace
- duplication of outgoing messages in 'sent' coversation view (w/archive option set)

The only disadvantage at present is one can not formulate an search in Aqua for mail from an explicit sender (me!) as the search function includes all addressing fields that appear in headers. Have to use a different mail client for that when needed.

Not this strategy is Gmail centric and may not play well with other providers.

[StR]

Archive a message from the inbox and it looses the inbox label. If no other label has been assigned (by filter or user) it is only representatived in "all mail". Very easy to do given Gmail UX which favors archiving.

But you already know that so we are coming at this from different vantage points.

As Kostya pointed out you are responding to something completely different from my point(s).
I wrote:

Unless you intentionally delete or archive a message in your server-side filters, how could it happen that a message would "loose all labels, including "inbox" "?

I do use Gmail, and more than one Gmail account, but quite possibly less than you do. Obviously, our workflows are different. But it looks like you are considering making some changes to your established procedures (you've asked about abandoning "Sent"). In that case, - you might want to consider and read the view that I have on these folders.

I consider "All Mail" label as an "archive". (Which is actually in line with Gmail's procedures.)
I've already written what "archive" means to me:

"Archived" means something that you do not access on everyday basis. You do that once in a while, and then you don't necessarily expect it to have all the same behavior.

So, in that view, - "All Mail" is essentially where deleted messages "live after death" within Gmail (for me). You can occasionally go there if you need to retrieve from long time ago. (I've never had to do that so far.) So, "All Mail" is not synced in IMAP clients.

All other messages live either in their respective folders (labels), where they get sorted either automatically or moved by hand, or in Inbox, if they do not belong to any major topic. Sent messages live in either "Sent" or in the specific folder where they got moved to.

In this case, you'd have no duplications, no duplications.

(And from what I can tell, this procedure would not create any additional problems with your multiple labels vs. Aquamail.)

From what I can tell, not actively using "All Mail" folder/label is a very frequent model of Gmail, at least by people who use Gmail via IMAP client (e.g. Thunderbird). And I don't go to "All Mail" even the web-interface, or in Gmail app that I am using for one of my Gmail accounts.


BTW, @Kostya: it looks like Thunderbird is aware of multiple labels in Gmail, and doesn't store message duplicates. At least that's what I read in some online pages at mozilla.org.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: it looks like Thunderbird is aware of multiple labels in Gmail, and doesn't store message duplicates

Not sure what they *store* (in terms of the back-end), but:

- It does show "All Mail" (and "Important", another pseudo-label-not-really-a-folder)

- I just ran it and the state is inconsistent:

Look at the unread counts, I don't have any unread messages in All Mail or Important in web mail.

This is a test account with only a few dozen messages, and I also pressed Get Messages a few times.

Update: I was wrong on this one, sorry, "All Mail" had some unread messages when I searched for "is: unread".

And then Thunderbird has no conversations / threading (I mean built-in, believe there is a plugin), so I don't know how it handles other interesting Gmail specific cases.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: Not sure what they *store* (in terms of the back-end)

Looks like "nothing Gmail specific":

- I marked a message in Inbox as Unread

- The unread count on "All Mail" only updated after a second or two, from the server, thanks to IMAP IDLE -- without it, the app didn't know it was the same message (so it would have updated the unread count in "All Mail" immediately, no delay)