277854 - Option to use (non-imap) local trash folder for IMAP account

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, enhancement)

Description

[Martin]

I think it should be possible to use a local Trash folder instead of the remote
Trash folder when using IMAP

Reason: So no one can look in my trashed emails, as they are as informative as
my inbox emails.

Comment 1

[Craig D. Rice]

Allowing an IMAP account to file deleted messages into Trash in a Local Mail
Folder would really help prevent over-quota issues our users are having. When a
user deletes a bunch of mail, the messages are moved to the IMAP account's Trash
folder. This often brings the user over quota, which prevents the user from
Trashing more messages.

Could the user use "Mark as Deleted" or "Delete Immediately"? Yes, but the users
for whatever silly reason want to keep deleted messages around in a Trash folder
for some period of time.

Could the user use POP instead? Yes, but we're using IMAP over SLL as our
standard method of accessing email (for lots of reasons).

Comment 2

[Tony Freeman]

I'm glad to see this feature request as I was about to request this as well.  It
would be really usefull for IMAP trash email to be filed in Local Trash folder
in order to keep mail quotas under control.  
 
Click on Tools --> Account Settings;  Select "Copies and Folders" for your IMAP
account.  I propose that an additional block be put in this dialog box called: 
"Trash Handling".
 

Comment 3

[Sebastian Lisken]

One should simply be able to choose a different trash folder in the very same
way that any existing folder can be chosen for Sent, Drafts and Templates. You
should get rid of the "trash_folder_name" pref at the same time. There is an
inconsistency here: whereas Sent, Drafts and Templates can be on any account,
with "trash_folder_name" you can only designate a folder in the same account as
the trash folder. Including UI for this would make life easier for people
dealing with the issues in bugs #279139 and #24064.

Comment 5

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Bug 182274 only lets you choose the folder, not which folder on which account. Reopening

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> One should simply be able to choose a different trash folder in the very same
> way that any existing folder can be chosen for Sent, Drafts and Templates. You
> should get rid of the "trash_folder_name" pref at the same time. There is an
> inconsistency here: whereas Sent, Drafts and Templates can be on any account

Wontfix? 

Noting bug's age and the rationales provided, I question the wisdom of this and whether it's worth keeping open:
* effect on search and better-faster imap
* volatility of a "trash" folder far exceeds the others noted
* fixed: Bug 279139 - Actual IMAP folder names differ ..
* fixed: Bug 24064 - Need ability to specify Trash
* probably not a smart workaround to hitting mail quotas

Comment 7

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

FYI. Bug 221946 is same request for SeaMonkey.

Comment 8

[gulian]

How is is possible that people have been asked the feature for 10 years and nothing has been done ?
It would be quite convenient when dealing with multiple imap accounts to have the deleted emails moved at the same place

Comment 9

[Henno Täht]

+1

Comment 10

[bojster]

+1 to gulian - ability to use local trash folder with multiple imap accounts would be very helpful

Comment 11

[Cat]

+1 from me too!!!
I know it was possible before. Why not anymore???

Comment 12

[webmaster]

This would be a great improvement for Thunderbird! It is impossible, that it didn't got implemented for over 10 years... It would be such a help when working with IMAP accounts. What can be done to speed up a fix for this bug?

Comment 17

[bege10]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #6)

Wontfix?

• probably not a smart workaround to hitting mail quotas

This is not only about quotas but also about privacy.
I keep the deleted messages (same as sent) for quite a while but don't want them to remain on the (IMAP) server. So I keep them in a local folder or in a folder of another POP account. No problem with sent folder, not possible with trash folder.

Comment 18

[niightblade]

Does anyone have an update on this 17 year old issue?

I could've sworn I had all my trash set to a local folder "recently" (a year or two ago), but I can't seem to get it to work now in 91.3.2 ...

Comment 19

[ohbobva]

Yikes! 20 years old!

My IMAP provider auto deletes, every 30 days, messages in the IMAP Trash folder. I'd rather keep them in a local Trash folder and delete myself, as necessary.

Comment 20

[gene smith]

Attachment: trash-to-anywhere.diff

This is a first cut attempt to allow a user to set mail.server.serverX.trash_folder_name to any folder URI so that when you delete a message it goes to that folder. Currently, via Server Settings or by manually setting trash_folder_name, it only allows choosing a folder on "serverX".

So with this patch, if you want deleted imap account messages to to go to Trash on Local Folders you would set mail.server.serverX.trash_folder_name to mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Trash. The user "nobody" and the %20 escape char for blank are required.

Note: Using the folder location shown for Local Folders Trash properties, e.g.,
mailbox:///home/gene/.thunderbird/kgmivl5o.default-release/Mail/Local Folders-maildir/Trash/ doesn't work.

You can also cause deleted messages to go to an arbitrary IMAP folder by setting trash_folder_name to the folder's URI, e.g., imap://[e-mail]/test. For imap folders, the location shown for the folder's property IS the correct URI to enter into trash_folder_name.

This doesn't currently set the "Trash" flag on the selected folder. So, unless the selected folder already displays the "Trash" icon, it won't have the "Empty Trash" capability and won't show the icon. I think this is probably OK.

A more user friendly fix would, of course, require changing the Server Setting UI for trash folder selection to allow selection from any folder on Local Folder, imap and POP accounts and encode the full folder URI into the trash_folder_name pref. Currently it only encodes a partial path, not the full URI, to the selected trash folder for the current server, e.g., Inbox/Trash.

Comment 21

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

It would be great if Trash folder worked like all the other special folders. I don't think we'd just want to hack the current pref though.

Comment 22

[gene smith]

Attachment: trash-to-anywhere-v1.diff

This is just a small change to allow manually setting the pref back to a path on the current server. As it was, once you set the pref to point to another server you could never go back.

Magnus wrote from comment 21:

It would be great if Trash folder worked like all the other special folders. I don't think we'd just want to hack the current pref though.

This is currently just a prototype to show it can be done by "hacking" the existing pref and allowing the user to set it manually. Yes, I think it should ultimately be like the other "special" folders so to select a trash folder you would see radio selections:

()  "Trash" folder on   [choose just an account, default to current account]
()  Other               [choose an account and then a folder, default to current account]

But all the other special folders can be set differently on each identity. Don't know if trash setting should also be tied to an identity.

Comment 23

[gene smith]

Attachment: trash-to-anywhere-v2.diff

Here's a more complete and general WIP implementation so you can select your imap trash folder to be anywhere. However, I ran into a problem when trash is in Local Folders and I try to delete a folder or a folder tree from imap account to it. The folders get copied to the L.F. trash and deleted from the source imap, but the messages don't always get copied. Also, sometime the lower level folders don't get copied either. Haven't found a fix for this yet.
Haven't tested folder delete when the destination is a trash folder on another imap account.
If you are just deleting messages and not folders, this works to any trash destination.

Comment 26

[qrs01]

Created attachment 9360904 [details] [diff] [review]
trash-to-anywhere-v2.diff

Here's a more complete and general WIP implementation so you can select your imap trash folder to be anywhere. However, I ran into a problem when trash is in Local Folders and I try to delete a folder or a folder tree from imap account to it. The folders get copied to the L.F. trash and deleted from the source imap, but the messages don't always get copied. Also, sometime the lower level folders don't get copied either. Haven't found a fix for this yet.
Haven't tested folder delete when the destination is a trash folder on another imap account.
If you are just deleting messages and not folders, this works to any trash destination.

Thank you for creating this patch, I've been using this for a little under a year now without any issues. I haven't tested the folder deleting issue as its not something that ever came up in my workflow.
Unfortunately this patch no longer applies with the latest versions of Thunderbird. Looks like code moving around and some refactoring broke it.

Comment 27

[gene smith]

patch no longer applies with the latest versions of Thunderbird

Thanks for using the patch. Been a while since I did this and completely forgot about it.
I'll try again to apply the patch and see if I can get it to work again. But want to make sure I understand what you mean by "latest version" of TB. I would presume you mean latest 128ESR. But I guess it's possible you mean latest beta or maybe latest daily that it no longer cleanly applies with.

Comment 28

[qrs01]

(In reply to gene smith from comment #27)

patch no longer applies with the latest versions of Thunderbird

Thanks for using the patch. Been a while since I did this and completely forgot about it.
I'll try again to apply the patch and see if I can get it to work again. But want to make sure I understand what you mean by "latest version" of TB. I would presume you mean latest 128ESR. But I guess it's possible you mean latest beta or maybe latest daily that it no longer cleanly applies with.

The release I was trying to patch was 128.5.0ESR. I'm not too sure at when the patch was no longer applyable. Some time between 115.9.0 and 128.5.0.

Comment 29

[gene smith]

Attachment: trash-to-anywhere-v3.diff

Sorry for the delay getting back to this.
I've updated the patch to resolve the conflicts (all minor, e.g., const vs. let, etc). I've only applied this and tested this on a post-128esr daily so I'm hoping it will apply OK to the latest 128esr.
I've been working on another patch involving Trash folders (Bug 399475, still being reviewed) and need to make sure this doesn't conflict with that patch.
Anyhow, I need to review what I did on this patch and submit a formal moz-phab patch for this.