Closed Bug 518651 Opened 16 years ago Closed 16 years ago

"New Mail" count on dock now reflects ALL unread messages in ALL folders

Categories

(Thunderbird :: OS Integration, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
OS Integration
Platform:
x86
macOS
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
minor

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 516477

People

(Reporter: omnichad, Unassigned)

Details

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.2a1) Gecko/20090806 Namoroka/3.6a1 Build Identifier: Upon upgrading to Thunderbird 3.0 beta4, I now have a permanent count of "309" stuck on my dock icon. This number reflects ALL unread messages - including unread mail in my junk folder, trash folder, and all inboxes. Previously, Thunderbird only showed the count of "New" messages. That is, messages that have arrived since I last viewed my inbox. Most of the time this is zero, and no green count is displayed. If this is a change in behavior, I don't like it, and it should be a user preference. And on top of that, should not be counting deleted unread messages anyway. Reproducible: Always
Summary: "New Mail" count on icon now reflects ALL unread messages in ALL folders → "New Mail" count on dock now reflects ALL unread messages in ALL folders
All accounts are IMAP on my test environment.
Version: unspecified → 3.0
We don't count junk, trash, or a host of other things. Unless you've flipped the pref for this, we only count inboxes. Also note that this count is not a count of New but a count of Unread. What you might be seeing is bug 516477.
Ok. I got out a calculator. Out of 3 IMAP inboxes: Account 1: 0 unread Account 2: 132 unread Account 3: 39 unread The total count on the dock icon is 303. I figured out that it's doubling account 2. That is, (132*2) + 39 = 303. If I read a message in Account 2, the count of 303 would drop by 2. And you say that it's only a count of unread, and that's not the behavior I saw in Thunderbird 2. Only the inboxes that were turned blue with "new messages" were counted toward the total. And the number is the number of new messages that make the inbox show up blue, not the total unread. If I click on both inboxes, and neither were blue anymore, the dock icon would remove its little green circle with a number. Is someone confirming that the dock message count being ALL unread messages is a behavior change from Thunderbird 2 to Thunderbird 3? Or is the claim that it's always been like that? I'm not using any smart folders, but I have several RSS feeds that are not affecting the number (thousands of unread). So I know it's only my IMAP inboxes.
I'm not making claims, I'm telling you what the code does. I rewrote it from tb 2 to 3 in bug 274688. However, this double count issue does exist, and it looks like that's what you're seeing. Please participate in that bug.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 16 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
I thought I should pitch in too, as this is driving me slightly mad. This is *not* strictly a dupe of bug 516477, though the above discussion got sidetracked into that. The main issue, as Chad points out, is that whereas before the green circle indicated the count of new messages, it now indicates the count of unread messages. I don't think this has ever before been the behavior in Thunderbird - maybe it was a change in response to bug 515893? The distinction between "new" and "unread" messages is an important one, and to me it seems appropriate for the dock icon to indicate the number of new, rather than unread messages. For example quite often when I get a new email I check the corresponding inbox, only to decide I don't need to read it now. With the old behavior the green circle would disappear because that email won't be "new" any more. This way if there was no green circle I'd know that nothing has come in since I last checked. With the new behavior the green circle would remain because I didn't actually *read* the email. Now the only way to know if there is any new mail that I'm not aware of is to keep track of the number of unread messages and look out for it increasing. This, as most people would probably agree, is a nuisance. It almost seems like Thunderbird is constantly prodding me to go and read all my unread emails, even if I've decided I can put them off. In short, please reopen this bug. I think we need a bit more discussion on the topic before we decide that this new behavior is what everyone wants.
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