225021 - \Deleted and \Seen flags should be set if message is moved to another folder

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(MailNews Core :: Networking: IMAP, defect)

Description

[Holger Mauermann]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6a) Gecko/20030923 Firebird/0.7+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031013 Thunderbird/0.3

If a message is moved from an IMAP Inbox to another folder with Junk Mail
Controls or Message Filters, only the "\Deleted" flag is set for this message in
Inbox. When you then access the same Inbox with other programs, they report that
you have "...XY unread messages..." even if it is empty. This happens until the
folder is expunged.

This is really confusing if you use a biff-like tool to monitor your IMAP
account. Some (most?) of them use the IMAP command
  STATUS foldername (UNSEEN)
to get the count for unread messages. However, this also counts all messages
that are moved/deleted, because Thunderbird doesn't set the "\Seen" flag for the
"\Deleted" message.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:



Expected Results:  
Both the "\Deleted" *and* the "\Seen" flags should be set for messages in the
source folder after they are moved to the target folder.

Comment 1

[Scott MacGregor]

.

Comment 2

[Holger Mauermann]

Attachment: set \Deleted and \Seen flag

patch the sets both \Deleted and \Seen flags

Comment 3

[Konstantin Stefanov]

It is seen not only with other tools, but with Mozilla Mail too. It show unread
deleted message number in INBOX, although they have been moved to another
folder, and switches to them when I press "Go to the next unread message".

But I think the effect exists only when option "When I delete a message" is set
to "Mark it as deleted".

Comment 4

[David :Bienvenu]

do other imap clients set the /SEEN flag when doing a move? I'm not sure it's
the right thing to do in general, but I understand why you want filters to do it.

Comment 5

[Holger Mauermann]

> do other imap clients set the /SEEN flag when doing a move?

Yes, at least Outlook Express does it.

> I'm not sure it's the right thing to do in general

Why not? If a message is moved with Mozilla/Thunderbird, it is no longer visible
in the source folder message list and there is no way to access or undelete this
message. So there is no reason to preserve the status of the flags and I can't
see any problems if we set the \Seen flag for all moved messages.

Comment 6

[David :Bienvenu]

You can undo the delete/move. Which won't remove the /SEEN flag if you remove it.

Comment 7

[Holger Mauermann]

Yes, you can undo the move/delete, but only for *manually* moved/deleted
messages.    If you manually move/delete a message you read it before, and the
\Seen flag is already set. It doesn't matter if we set it again or not.

And even if you move an unseen message and then undo the move - you end up with
an *unseen* deleted message in the *target* folder if the \Seen flag is not set
together with \Deleted...

Comment 8

[David :Bienvenu]

>Yes, you can undo the move/delete, but only for *manually* moved/deleted
>messages.    If you manually move/delete a message you read it before, and the
>\Seen flag is already set. It doesn't matter if we set it again or not.

No, you can select multiple messages w/o reading all (or any) of them and do a
move/delete that way.

Which is not to say that I'm not going to do what you propose, but we should all
be aware of the issues.

Comment 9

[Holger Mauermann]

Latest Thunderbird build has a new option "Mark message read after displaying
for xy seconds". This is great, but if I quickly delete or move some messages
without waiting this time they remain in the source folder as deleted and
unseen... This is even more annoying. I still think that it's safe to set the
\Seen flag for all moved/deleted messages.

Comment 10

[Ere Maijala (slow)]

I vote for this too. This helps avoiding bogus new mail notifications (which I
think is a flaw in the IMAP RFC, but there's nothing we can do about it).

Comment 11

[David :Bienvenu]

Comment on attachment 135012 [details] [diff] [review]
set \Deleted and \Seen flag

OK, I'll try this patch and check it in. Thx!

Comment 12

[David :Bienvenu]

fix checked in.

Comment 13

[[e-mail]]

Hopefully this will also help my situation (using IMAP deleted model, message
was filtered into another folder, but still counted as unread in Inbox).

Comment 14

[David :Bienvenu]

thx for suggesting this - it makes so many problems go away!

Comment 15

[David :Bienvenu]

fixed on m4 branch

Comment 16

[Mitch]

I use filters to move my mail to different mailboxes, but I *do* want to see how
many unread messages I have while using my mail checker. I want to know how many
I haven't seen, so therefore, the filtered mail should not be marked as seen.

This should be an option, right, because it's a matter of opinion.