[PATCH] Support hiding deleted IMAP messages (v3)

[Nikolaus Rath]

Hello,

This patch introduces a new server variable, nnimap-hide-deleted. If
non-nil, articles with the IMAP \Deleted flag will not be included in
Summary buffers.

This is intended to increase operability with other IMAP mailreaders and
the new 'never value for nnimap-expunge (see patch in bug 20670).

Changes in v2:

* Take into account that server may send the UID, FLAGS and RFC822.SIZE
response data items in arbitrary order

Changes in v3:

* Made first line of docstring a complete sentence.

Thanks for considering,
-Nikolaus

[Greg Troxel]

Post by Nikolaus Rath
This patch introduces a new server variable, nnimap-hide-deleted. If
non-nil, articles with the IMAP \Deleted flag will not be included in
Summary buffers.
This is intended to increase operability with other IMAP mailreaders and
the new 'never value for nnimap-expunge (see patch in bug 20670).

I haven't reviewed the patch, but the functionality is needed. I find
that on deleting messages with GUI IMAP clients, they are still seen in
gnus.

I find the deletion notion in IMAP confusing, between move-to-trash and
just-marked-deleted-but-keep, and don't really know how the articles end
up in the trash folder using the just-mark scheme, but it hasn't
bothered me enough to dig in. I do find myself deleting things twice
once in $GUI_IMAP, and once in gus.

[Nikolaus Rath]

Post by Greg Troxel

Post by Nikolaus Rath
This patch introduces a new server variable, nnimap-hide-deleted. If
non-nil, articles with the IMAP \Deleted flag will not be included in
Summary buffers.
This is intended to increase operability with other IMAP mailreaders and
the new 'never value for nnimap-expunge (see patch in bug 20670).

I haven't reviewed the patch, but the functionality is needed. I find
that on deleting messages with GUI IMAP clients, they are still seen in
gnus.
I find the deletion notion in IMAP confusing, between move-to-trash and
just-marked-deleted-but-keep, and don't really know how the articles end
up in the trash folder using the just-mark scheme, but it hasn't
bothered me enough to dig in.

It's really pretty simple. There is no concept of a trash folder in
IMAP. Deleting a message means marking it with the \Deleted flag. The UA
is expected to take that into account when showing the mailbox contents
(e.g. by hiding such messsages or showing them crossed out). A message
can be physically deleted by "expunging" it (that would correspond to
emptying the trash).

Any trash folder in an IMAP mailbox is a totally ordinary folder, and if
there are messages in it it means that they have been moved there (i.e.,
not deleted). To empty the trash, you still have to mark the message as
\Deleted, *and* then expunge it.



Best,
-Nikolaus

[Greg Troxel]

Post by Nikolaus Rath
It's really pretty simple. There is no concept of a trash folder in
IMAP. Deleting a message means marking it with the \Deleted flag. The UA
is expected to take that into account when showing the mailbox contents
(e.g. by hiding such messsages or showing them crossed out). A message
can be physically deleted by "expunging" it (that would correspond to
emptying the trash).

OK, but it seems many MUAs have a notion of moving messages to a trash
folder instead of just IMAP deletion.

Do MUAs that behave the way you say have "trash" mailbox in the UI
that is really the set of messages in other mailboxes (or inbox)
that have the \Deleted flag set?

Post by Nikolaus Rath
Any trash folder in an IMAP mailbox is a totally ordinary folder, and if
there are messages in it it means that they have been moved there (i.e.,
not deleted). To empty the trash, you still have to mark the message as
\Deleted, *and* then expunge it.

But I empty trash by total-expire in gnus, on the trash mailbox :-)

[Nikolaus Rath]

Post by Greg Troxel

Post by Nikolaus Rath
It's really pretty simple. There is no concept of a trash folder in
IMAP. Deleting a message means marking it with the \Deleted flag. The UA
is expected to take that into account when showing the mailbox contents
(e.g. by hiding such messsages or showing them crossed out). A message
can be physically deleted by "expunging" it (that would correspond to
emptying the trash).

OK, but it seems many MUAs have a notion of moving messages to a trash
folder instead of just IMAP deletion.
Do MUAs that behave the way you say have "trash" mailbox in the UI
that is really the set of messages in other mailboxes (or inbox)
that have the \Deleted flag set?

Theoretically they could, in practice I don't know any MUA that does
this. They all have a trash mailbox in the imap account, and move
messages there instead of deleting them.

Post by Greg Troxel

Post by Nikolaus Rath
Any trash folder in an IMAP mailbox is a totally ordinary folder, and if
there are messages in it it means that they have been moved there (i.e.,
not deleted). To empty the trash, you still have to mark the message as
\Deleted, *and* then expunge it.

But I empty trash by total-expire in gnus, on the trash mailbox :-)

That's the same thing. By default, deleting in Gnus means setting the
\Delete flag *and* immediately running expunge. But I've submitted
another patch that changes this, so that you can skip the expunge step.


Best,
-Nikolaus