1016771 - email account configuration has misleading description which can lead to loss of emails

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect)

Description

[andré]

The problem is a misleading description.
(note my version of Seamonkey is in french, so english may be approximate)

In email module
. Under Edit / Account preferences
.. on the server parametre page (for a POP3 account)
... There is a option : "Leave messages on the server"
.... And a sub-option : "Until I delete them"

Unfortunately, if one deletes a message on the computer,
it also deletes the message on the server.

So the sub-option should read : "Until I delete them ON THIS COMPUTER"

Note that this option had been checked on all my accounts, as it seemed to indicate "until I delete them on the server".
Normally I keep all messages (except spam), so this was not previously noticed.

What happened :
1) For some reason, all the messages still on my email server were downloaded a second time, so I had close to a thousand duplicate messages on my computer
2) I proceeded to delete the duplicate messages.
3) After deleting the duplicates on my computer, I accessed my email account via the web.
There were still at least many hundreds of emails on the server.
The server was apparently quite slow deleting them.
4) Because of a display problem (likely caused by the delete process on the server), I disconnected and reconnected
5) I discovered that all but a few emails had been deleted on the server.

Since users may download emails on a different computer first, and then delete them, this misleading description can be very dangerous, leading to losing important emails.
Because of this I classify this as having "major" severity.
(Fortunately it is easily fixed.)

To reiterate :
"Until I delete them"
(which seems to indicate ON THE SERVER)
should read
"Until I delete them ON MY COMPUTER"

Comment 1

[andré]

Ping ?
This very misleading description in
"menu / account preferences / server parameters"
option "leave messages on the server" / "until I delete them"

should read "until I delete them ON THIS COMPUTER"
meaning "delete a message on the server if I delete it on this computer"

since it seems to imply "until I delete them on the server".

This misunderstanding could result in losing important emails for those temporarily accessing their email on a secondary computer.

Comment 2

[andré]

Still a problem in sm 2.30

Comment 3

[Rainer Bielefeld]

REPRODUCIBLE with installation of unofficial (by wg9s) De SeaMonkey 2.53.4beta 1 pre Mozilla/5.0 (NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0 Build 20200604210008 (Default Classic Theme, newly created User Profile) on German WIN7 64bit anda POP3 account of mine.

Configuration: 'Leave mails on server', no number of days checked, 'until they will be deleted'.

STR:

1. Check INBOX emails with WEB interface of my emails service provider for particular email; it's on SMTPserver
2. In SM select email in Thread pane and pres <Del> key
   » particular email moved to "Trash"
3. In Web interface click 'update' Icon and check INBOX fpr particula email; it has gone.

Text in UI for option 'until they will be deleted' made me think that I will have to delete an email on the SMTP server to get rid of it there. But actually deletion on my PC makes the email vanish from SMTP server.

So I agree with reporter's suggestion.

Additional informatin

a) I think this one can be fixed easily without danger of unwanted querulous
b) I see this one as an UI problem, not as a configuration problem.
c) Needs change in all Localizations, too.