Bugzilla

(In reply to Matt from comment #98)
> Gmails 30 day deletion is still confusing to our users.  They regularly report issues, not only with gmail, where Thunderbird is set to delete nothing and the trash file keeps emptying itself.  I think  perhaps we need to rethink deleted as users appear to think deleted is "completed"  and the trash is a large completed items folder.

With my proposed fix, another folder name like "RoundFile" can be designated as trash destination. Other than the possible localization issues, one problem with it is that messages deleted to RoundFile will, of course, not be in the gmail's Trash. Therefore when messages are deleted from RoundFile or RoundFile is emptied, the messages will still be in [Gmail]/All Mail and not really gone. Also, if the same message exists in multiple folders, when deleted from one of the folder, the message will remain in all the other folders; however, this may be good and what most users expect. To permanently and completely delete the message, including from All Mail, all copies in multiple folders would need to be moved to gmail's Trash using tb (assuming  [Gmail]/Trash is visible via imap and subscribed in tb), or at gmail site, delete the message to Trash in a single folder which will put all copies effectively in Trash. Then delete or empty trash at gmail site; this can't be done in tb (* see below) since [Gmail]/Trash is now not the designated trash folder. So these extra step are needed to completely erase a message from gmail.

Of course, even with my proposed fix, when a gmail account is created in tb, tb will set [Gmail]/Trash as the trash destination initially. I suspect most users are OK with that and will just leave it as is. However, even with this default setting there may be issues other than just the 30 day trash limit. One is that if you have the same message copied to multiple folders and you delete it in any one of the folders, all copies will effectively be moved to Trash. Then when it is deleted from Trash or when Trash is emptied, since it is truly in gmail's Trash, it will completely removed from gmail, including All Mail.

The above is based on doing detailed tests with tb and gmail since I wasn't completely sure how it works. The tb/gmail/imap documentation I could find was not always real clear. The discussion also assumes that the imap setting at the gmail site are default.

(*) A possible way to to still empty [Gmail]/Trash in tb with RoundFile as the designated trash folder is to temporarily set the delete method to "Delete immediately" and then delete the messages copied to [Gmail]/Trash. This should mark them all with imap \deleted and expunge the deleted messages in [Gmail]/Trash so the the messages are completely deleted from gmail, even from All Mail.  (I haven't actually tested this.)

(In reply to Matt from comment #98)
> Gmails 30 day deletion is still confusing to our users.  They regularly report issues, not only with gmail, where Thunderbird is set to delete nothing and the trash file keeps emptying itself.  I think  perhaps we need to rethink deleted as users appear to think deleted is "completed"  and the trash is a large completed items folder.

With my proposed fix, another folder name like "RoundFile" can be designated as trash destination. Other than the possible localization issues, one problem with it is that messages deleted to RoundFile will, of course, not be in the gmail's Trash. Therefore when messages are deleted from RoundFile or RoundFile is emptied, the messages will still be in [Gmail]/All Mail and not really gone. Also, if the same message exists in multiple folders, when deleted from one of the folder, the message will remain in all the other folders; however, this may be good and what most users expect. To permanently and completely delete the message, including from All Mail, all copies in multiple folders would need to be moved to gmail's Trash using tb (assuming  [Gmail]/Trash is visible via imap and subscribed in tb), or at gmail site, delete the message to Trash in a single folder which will put all copies effectively in Trash. Then delete or empty trash at gmail site; this can't be done in tb (* see below) since [Gmail]/Trash is now not the designated trash folder. So these extra step are needed to completely erase a message from gmail.

Of course, even with my proposed fix, when a gmail account is created in tb, tb will set [Gmail]/Trash as the trash destination initially. I suspect most users are OK with that and will just leave it as is. However, even with this default setting there may be issues other than just the 30 day trash limit. One is that if you have the same message copied to multiple folders and you delete it in any one of the folders, all copies will effectively be moved to Trash. Then when it is deleted from Trash or when Trash is emptied, since it is truly in gmail's Trash, it will completely removed from gmail, including All Mail.

The above is based on doing detailed tests with tb and gmail since I wasn't completely sure how it works. The tb/gmail/imap documentation I could find was not always real clear. The discussion also assumes that the imap setting at the gmail site are default.

(*) A possible way to to still empty [Gmail]/Trash in tb with RoundFile as the designated trash folder is to temporarily set the delete method to "Delete immediately" and then delete the messages copied to [Gmail]/Trash. This should mark them all with imap \deleted and expunge the deleted messages in [Gmail]/Trash so the the messages are completely deleted from gmail, even from All Mail.  (I haven't actually tested this.)
Edit: Now I have tested it. A problem is that when the messages in Trash are marked \deleted by tb, and even though gmail site is configured with the default "When I mark a message in IMAP as deleted, auto-expunge on -- immediately update the server" this doesn't seem to apply for Trash. I had to also compact Trash in tb which expunges the Trash folder to remove the messages from Trash folder and from gmail completely. (I noticed also that when a message that exists in one or more folders is moved to Trash, it only exists in Trash and is also now not listed in All Mail.)