Smart Folder with "All" selected shows 139 of 393 - seems to be a bug

[vinces]

Hi, I really appreciate what Aquamail is and does. For me I prefer to Pop to my main PC and manage the .pst files as appropriate across laptops - old school I know but works reliably for me. Aquamail is a brilliantly handy way to check and deal with / purge emails when away from base (using Samsung Note 4 on latest Android version) but when I turn that base PC on it is going to clean out the server and my phone with it. So I only see new stuff on the ph.

My base PC has been broken for 3 weeks, just this minute got it going good again. I have suspected for some time that the Smart folder doesn't display all emails rec'd but just gone and collected the evidence before dumping the servers to PC.

I have 8 email accounts. All Inbox folders are set to show in Smart Folder. Smart Folder settings are to show All Current. Smart folder right now shows 139 emails, yet the Inboxes of the various accounts total to 393. That is 211 in my default account and 14, 7, 1, 0, 7, 143 & 10 in the other accounts.

The way this problem is made evident to me is I want to find an email that I did at the same time as another event I do remember. So I search the known term which quickly finds the date of the wanted email (Sept 21 in this case) then scroll to the date and expect to scroll through emails that day to find what I want. I see other emails from the same account displayed  for the day but not including the just found email or the one I'm looking for. But go check that account inbox folder in the same way and here they are, all good.

I have read the faq's and some lengthy chats around the issue on this forum and don't see where a clear discussion of this basic issue has occured, despite that others are obviously asking about the same thing then getting distracted by other issues / language aspects. So here it is - lengthy but clear explanation of how the Smart Folder is seen to be not working in the manner expected. It is easy to check the issue by just looking at the account list and see if the Smart Folder item count is the same as the total of all the other account Inboxes, assuming the defaults are set to include everything and show all. Thank you.

PS: If it is relevant, accounts on IMAP (ie gmail or yahoo) are the non-default ones having 143, 10 & 7 in their inboxes. All accounts are set to delete on server if deleted on phone but otherwise leave on server. The PC is set up to delete when downloaded, which is how I ensure the integrity of the .pst's and avoid double handling by me.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

It sounds like the reason is -- a lot of your messages were combined into "conversations" (threads).

The per-folder counts (both unread and total) on the app's main window are *individual message* counts (not *conversation counts*).

And then when you go into the smart folder and count the actual items -- some of those are bound to be (with the app's default settings)  *conversations*, containing multiple messages each.

You can tell by a small number on the right side of such list items, with a blue background, and then if you tap such list item, the app will expand the conversation to show its (contained) messages.

Does this make sense?

[vinces]

Thanks Kostya,  it makes sense but is not what is going on! I turned conversations  off when it defaulted on with last update as I don't use them, mostly because I am routinely changing the subject to reflect the content whereas typically people put no attention to this important aspect.

To be clear I don't have to count emails in the Smart Folder, just look at the unread / read counts and add them up to see they  don't total to the numbers listed for the smart folder. When I was quoting these figures in my OP they were all read, as having unread ones kinda defeats the point! But all the figures quoted are true - why the smart folder  doesn't display all emails remains a mystery and is really a pretty serious nuisance as I was simply unable to find emails I was pretty sure I had seen. Now I know of the problem at least I can work around it by going to the account inboxes and finding them that way.

What I suspect is there is some internal limit that is hit. Right now I have 13 in the Smart folder and that exactly equals the total of the inboxes which are 1's and 2's and a 6. When exactly it starts dropping them out of the smart folder I don't know as I have only just realised it is the app losing its mind, not me. But I am sure it has happened for quite some time across versions of Android and Aquamail, so it is "baked in"  in some way. I have been an avid user of the app for at least 2 years.

One possible aspect is I don't clear out  sent or deleted messages. Currently showing qtys of 178/35, 3/0, 1/3, 2/1, 8/3, 463/0, 3/0 & 1/1 for sent / deleted respectively. I do use the permanent delete feature, a lot. The 178 is my default account and the 463 is a gmail account.

If there is some diagnostic work I can do next time I notice a disparity please let me know. Please note if you search this forum for smart folder you find other people have asked my exact question (without figures) but the following discussion has not got an answer, so I am certain it is happening, just not sure exactly what the necessary conditions  are for the smart folder to stop displaying all emails that fit the criteria.

By the way I tried setting Current month with the figures in my OP but that didn't change the figures at all, which was not surprising since the period I had racked up the then load of emails was all in the current month.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: just look at the unread / read counts and add them up to see they  don't total to the numbers listed for the smart folder

But the smart folder only shows whatever messages are loaded into (synced with) the app --

-- whereas the per-folder unread and total counts show server counts.

For example, I've got > 50K messages in my Gmail inbox, and let's say there were 300 unread (hypothetically).

But if the app is only set to sync 50 most recent messages (from each account / folder), then the smart folder will have up to 50 messages from that folder, but the main window (with the list of accounts) will have at least 300 unread listed.

[vinces]

Wish it was that simple, but it ain't! On my main PC I POP everything with delete when downloaded set, specifically to clean the servers out. IMAP is for pussys! (joke). So the inbox counts are indeed the server counts, but every message on the respective server has been delivered to me and I have the download level set at enough kB to ensure all emails get downloaded in full, except if they have .mpg and similar files and I need to specifically download them.

I realise the pussy option is pretty popular, as is the default of "leave email on server for 2 weeks after downloading" that comes with Outlook (which I use on main PC). But these are not me. Maybe there are not too many others that fit in this box and hence the issue has gone unnoticed for so long as disparity between email count and smart folder count is the norm. However when you are looking for that elusive email you KNOW you got, search finds and displays it and yet it still refuses to display in the smart folder you KNOW there is a problem. Let's talk about solving it rather than looking for ways for it not to be real - it is real!

I could go search for the quotes on this forum showing exactly how others have expressed the problem here, but can't do it right now as going out shortly. I am happy to help and sure, I am always aware there could be some setting somewhere I have missed - but at the very least I have a pretty good understanding of what is going on here and how to do the bits 'n pieces of it, perhaps suffice to say I didn't sign up for the fast group on Windows Insiders for nothing as finally realised the only way to get some of the glaring Win 10 issues resolved was to join in and fix from the inside rather than simply put up with it and hope. That has been working, surprisingly some may say! Hoping it can here too, although of course different things are going on here, which I well understand - and revert to the opening sentence in my OP!

[Kostya Vasilyev]

I guess what I'd need at this point is --

-- getting more narrow and specific info.

Let's see:

- POP3, "remove deleted messages" off, I presume -- the per-folder unread counts are in-app counts.

Should not be larger than the per-folder total counts (which don't show on the app's main screen), which, in turn, are

max (server_count which is always zero for you, locally stored count)

- About this

I have 8 email accounts. All Inbox folders are set to show in Smart Folder. Smart Folder settings are to show All Current. Smart folder right now shows 139 emails, yet the Inboxes of the various accounts total to 393. That is 211 in my default account

How did you arrive at 211? If it's the number next to the folder on the app's main screen, that's the unread count.

To check, can you please open this folder, "select all" from the menu and check the count?

For this check to make sense, please set app settings -> message list -> "Select ALL means" -> all *loaded* messages


I'm going away for about a week, so we'll have to continue when I get back.