560200 - Add support for client-side folder subscriptions (enhancement)

Status: REOPENED

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, enhancement)

Description

[Altaveron]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.1.9) Gecko/20100317 Thunderbird/3.0.4

IMAP folders automatically subscribe after unsubscribing

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Unsubscribe from 'Junk E-mail', 'Sent Mail' and 'Нежелательная почта' folders.
2. Use IMAP account with other mail-clients (MS Outlook 2007 and others).
3. Run Thunderbird and look to the unsubscribed folders as subscribed.
Actual Results:  
Can't unsubscribe from the folders.

Expected Results:  
The unsubscribed folders should be unsubscribed.

Comment 1

[David :Bienvenu]

an IMAP protocol log would be useful, of a session where you try to unsubscribe, and a session where you restart and end up subscribed again. https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging

It's most likely this is an issue with the server, as long as the initial unsubscribe attempt is correctly formed.

Comment 2

[Altaveron]

(In reply to comment #1)
> an IMAP protocol log would be useful, of a session where you try to
> unsubscribe, and a session where you restart and end up subscribed again.
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging
> 
> It's most likely this is an issue with the server, as long as the initial
> unsubscribe attempt is correctly formed.

Different mail-clients should have different subscription list on one login. Thunderbird should store subscription list - not the server.

Comment 3

[David :Bienvenu]

(In reply to comment #2)

> 
> Different mail-clients should have different subscription list on one login.
> Thunderbird should store subscription list - not the server.

No, IMAP subscription is maintained by the server so that different clients will all see the same list of subscribed folders, by definition. Please read http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3501.html

Comment 4

[Altaveron]

This is incorrect standard. It's not useful. A good mail-client should work correctly for user - not for standards, at least as option.

Other mail clients automatically add specific folders. Then other clients see this folders too. It's incorrect at total. User shouldn't see three or more folders for junk e-mails on every mail-client.

Comment 5

[David :Bienvenu]

Work is being done on a standard so that clients can know which folders are special (e.g., Junk, Sent, etc) to deal with that issue.

Comment 6

[Altaveron]

Users should have useful functionality as option. Standards may be a default way to work with subscribed folders. Now I can't use Thunderbird because it shows me a lot of trash folders.

Comment 7

[Altaveron]

IMAP standards are the worst. All webmail systems and classic mail-clients have different folders for junk, sent mail and trash (also they have different names of system folders for different languages). There is no standards at total in practice (except one folder - INBOX). All systems works as they want.

But Thunderbird should work correctly with all of them. And this functionality is more than simple realization of incomplete and primitive standards.

Comment 8

[Ron]

Thunderbird 14.0
I have the same issue with imap.mail.ru
So no chance to fix this?

Comment 9

[ildar.mulyukov]

If the bug originator wants so, he could change the title to, e.g.:
"Handle server-side folder subscriptions in more user-friendly way".
Then devs could decide what to do with it.

And IMHO, TB should follow standard it is intended to follow even if they are evil. If a man dislike a standard and think it is evil, then he should make another standard, maybe IMAP5 ? Indeed creating and RFC doesn't demand a lot of money and such.

Comment 10

[Matt]

It is pretty clear that the action is based on the RFC. So I will close the bug as invalid. RFC compliance is what we are supposed to be working towards.

Comment 12

[gene smith]

Re-opened as an enhancement request as also requested in bug 1759883.

Comment 13

[Craig]

(In reply to Matt from comment #10)

It is pretty clear that the action is based on the RFC. So I will close the bug as invalid. RFC compliance is what we are supposed to be working towards.

It's pretty clear that the action should be based on users having control over what data they see. RFC compliance is for communication between the server and the client, not display between the client and the user. The user might want to see different folders on one device than another. This is a totally separate issue to the client/server standards. User convenience is what we should be working towards. it's amazing that this is still outstanding after 13 years.

Comment 14

[LNXnut]

(In reply to Craig from comment #13)

(In reply to Matt from comment #10)

It is pretty clear that the action is based on the RFC. So I will close the bug as invalid. RFC compliance is what we are supposed to be working towards.

It's pretty clear that the action should be based on users having control over what data they see. RFC compliance is for communication between the server and the client, not display between the client and the user. The user might want to see different folders on one device than another. This is a totally separate issue to the client/server standards. User convenience is what we should be working towards. it's amazing that this is still outstanding after 13 years.

This is exactly right, and concur with incredulity at 13-year duration of this infuriating bug.

TB is clearly not looking to the mail server to retrieve subscribed folders since some of the folders don't exist! [Yahoo mail is the worst.] What's more, purging the account and later adding anew re-subscribes to the very same nonexistent folders and it's impossible to unsubscribe!