236995 - In the Menu “Edit/Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings/Copies & Folders”, there is NOT an option that says: “When receiving messages, automatically: Place a copy in:…etc.”, and there should be an option like that in that Menu.

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Account Configuration, enhancement)

Description

[tstw]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7a) Gecko/20040219
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7a) Gecko/20040219

In the Menu “Edit/Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings/Copies & Folders”, the
program gives you different options to change the place where e-mails are
stored, depending on weather they are “sent messages”, “Drafts” of “Templates”. 

For instance, in that Menu the program says: “When sending messages,
automatically: Place a copy in:… (and lets you chose which directory to place
that e-mail you sent... or that Draft, or Template)”

But if you want to do the same thing with “incoming” e-mails, those which are
received in the “INBOX” of each one of your e-mail accounts (in case you have
multiple accounts), the program does not give you that option to do so in the
“Copies & Folders” window, and instead, you would have to go to the Menu
“Tools/Message filters”, and set up a specific filter to do that.

In fact, you can set up a filter to do that, but:

My suggestion is that it would be simpler, nicer, and easier to add an
additional option in the same “Copies & Folders” window, so that you can do the
same thing for the “incoming” mail, as you can automatically already do with the
“sending messages”, the “Drafts” and “Templates”. 

Instead of that, and according to the way the program work right now, you have
to set up a specific filter only for the “incoming messages”, so that you can
place them in a different directory. And the procedure of setting filters is not
as simple, fast and easy as clicking on the options the program provides in the
“Copies & Folders” window.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. It is already explained above.
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
It is already explained above.

Expected Results:  
The result would be to enhance the performance of the program and to make it
easier to use for users who have multiple email accounts, and for the purpose
described above: placing copies of “incoming” mail in a directory of your own
choosing (other than the default one). 

For instance, there is a Linux email program called EVOLUTION, which allows you
to do which I have just described above.

For instance, imagine you have 5 e-mail accounts, 3 personal ones and 2 business
ones. And you want to automatically place the "incoming" mail for the 3 personal
ones in a single “INBOX” folder, but want to keep the incoming mail for the 2
business accounts always separately … etc… Well, with the procedure I have just
described above, it would be easier, if you choose to, to keep together the
incoming mail for 3 personal accounts in the same “INBOX” folder.

Comment 1

[Stefan Borggraefe]

This is quite similar to bug 159083. The difference is that bug 159083 wants to
move all messages to the Local Folders and to hide the account completey while
you want to move just the incoming messages.

With your idea we would duplicate UI for something that is already posible with
the Message Filters (as you said). I suspect it would be confusing for users in
which order the functionality proposed here and the Message Filters would be
executed. For example, imagine you have a Filters defined for the incoming
messages for the Account you want to move the messages away from. Are they
executed before the move operation or not executed at all? How can we make
either behaviour clear to the user?

I think bug 159083 would be a better solution for the problem addressed here.
Suggesting WONTFIX.

Comment 2

[tstw]

(In reply to comment #1)
> This is quite similar to bug 159083. The difference is that bug 159083 wants to
> move all messages to the Local Folders and to hide the account completey while
> you want to move just the incoming messages.
> 
> With your idea we would duplicate UI for something that is already posible with
> the Message Filters (as you said). I suspect it would be confusing for users in
> which order the functionality proposed here and the Message Filters would be
> executed. For example, imagine you have a Filters defined for the incoming
> messages for the Account you want to move the messages away from. Are they
> executed before the move operation or not executed at all? How can we make
> either behaviour clear to the user?
> 
> I think bug 159083 would be a better solution for the problem addressed here.
> Suggesting WONTFIX.

Dear Stefan Borggraefe: thanks for your comments to my suggestion (bug 236995). 

I have read bug 159083, and, as you say, it is kind of similar to mine. But,
please, let me make a further comment about what I meant, just for clarification:

1) I would like to be able to easily tell the program weather any of my e-mail
accounts (providing I have multiple ones) will stay separated from the rest as
an independent account (with its own inbox, sent, drat, template, trash), or it
will not. In case it will not, I should easily be able to tell the program where
to store any specific account. That way, I could have a folder of my own
choosing (Example: the Local Folder) to store many different accounts (For
example: all of my personal ones, or whatever).

In other words, I should easily tell the program where I would like for the
program to automatically copy all the e-mails for a specific account, and I mean
the “inbox, sent, draft, template, and trash”, and not only the “sent, draft,
template”. That way, I could automatically copy, for example, all e-mails from
Account-A ,“inbox, sent, draft, template, trash”, in the corresponding “inbox,
sent, draft, template, trash” of Account-B (or Local Folder, etc.).

3) Right now, the way the program is made, you can go to the Menu “Edit/Mail &
Newsgroups Account Settings/Copies & Folders”, and easily do that (what I
described in the previous paragraphs number 1 & 2) for the “sent, draft and
templates”, but not for the “inbox and trash”, because in the “Copies & Folders”
the program only let’s you do it for the “sent, draft, and template”. If you
want to do the same thing for the “inbox and trash” you would have to go to the
“filters area” and set up a specific filter to do it.

4) My suggestion was that I believe the program should provide an easier way to
handle these situations also for the “inbox and trash”. I know there are
different possibilities to fix this situation (as I said, or as bug 159083
said), but I thought that since you can already set your preferences for placing
“automatic copies” of the “sent, draft, and templates” in the “Copies & Folders”
window, it would be good to have in that same place (in the “Copies & Folders”
window) additional options also for the “inbox and trash”, because, sincerely, I
rather not having to use the filters if there is an easier way to do that. I
rather have all the options for similar things in the same window (in this case,
in the “Copies & Folders” window).

5) I am aware that this situation I am talking about could be solved in
different ways, and I hope it will be done in the easiest and simpler way. For
example, in the “Copies & Folders” window you could have a “single bottom” which
tells you: “Automatically place a copy of Account-A in:…..what ever other
account” and let you pick a different account. That way, you could easily
control which accounts will stay independent from the rest, and which ones will
be placed in the same folder. That is, you should be able to easily decide
weather you want all your accounts to be independent from each other, or all of
them to be placed together in the same folder, or any combination in between:
some separated, and some put together.

Thanks a lot! Antonio Garcia.