Open Bug 668215 Opened 14 years ago Updated 3 years ago

Archiving does not keep the folder structure when the option is activated

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Mail Window Front End
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: wim.van.glabeke, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: regression)

Attachments

(1 file)

Screenshot of archive - keep folder structure settings
158.56 KB, image/jpeg
Details
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/534.30 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/12.0.742.112 Safari/534.30 Steps to reproduce: archived a message in my inbox, the option "keep folder structure" is on Actual results: the message was moved under the archive folder, but the folder structure was not retained Expected results: the message must be moved to the correct sub-folder in the archive folder
keep the folder structure, is that provided by an extension ? Any errors in Tools -> Error console when this happens ?
I do not use an extension for this, it is integrate in the main app. The "Keep existing folder structure of archived messages" can be found under: Tools -> Account Settings -> Copies & Folders item under your account -> Archive Options. There are no errors or warnings in the Error Console when I archive a message.
Oups missed the fact that we had implemented it. Did this work in 3.1.x ?
Component: General → Mail Window Front End
QA Contact: general → front-end
This worked in the 3.1.x version. I have done some more testing and I found out the following: - in version 3.1.x: * the messages in the inbox are archived to an inbox sub-folder in the archive folder * the messages in a sub-folder of the inbox folder are archived to a sub-folder of the sub-folder Inbox - in version 5: * the inbox sub-folder is no longer created in the archive folder, so the messages in the inbox are archived directly in the archive folder * messages in a sub-folder of the inbox are archived to a sub-folder of the archive folder So in conclusion I can state that the archiving respects the folder structure, but the folder structure in the archive folders has changed between 3.1.x and 5
Yes we did change some things - as I had to readjust some settings from 3.x when we changed.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Keywords: regression
I have the same problem in 9.0.1 It do not create the folder structure if the message is in Inbox. If I create a folder foobar and move the message there and archive the message from the foobar folder it creates a foobar folder under Archive. If I turn on Monthly archive folders and keep folder structure it do not create the month structure for either folder (foobar or Inbox) and the message is GONE. So we loose messages with this bug.
I can also reproduce this. Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; rv:13.0) Gecko/20120407 Thunderbird/13.0a2
OK, after a suggestion on IRC I did some more experimenting, and it appears what's actually happened is that the "Inbox" is no longer counted as a distinct "Folder" for archiving purposes. Your date folder will be the target of any messages archived from "Inbox". Other folders within that are created and populated as before. So it looks to me like this really is working, the semantics about how the Inbox is handled have just changed.
13:12:57 < squib> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=517514 is the bug that changed it 13:13:01 < firebot> Bug 517514 enh, --, Thunderbird 3.3a1, mkmelin+mozilla, RESO FIXED, Expand archive granularity option backend to support UI 13:13:37 < squib> looking at the code, the change is definitely intentional, though i'm not sure reviewers picked up on it, since it's not explicitly discussed in the bug
To add more to the confusion, it appears that the examples in the dialog box for choosing your archive method actually use "Inbox" as the example folder on the "preserve folder structure" options.
Indeed, let me add one extra confusion. 'Sent' is regarded as a distinct folder (and is thus created when archiving). So 'Inbox' is not and 'Sent' is. But in the example window 'Inbox' is shown and 'Sent' is not. Huh? With this kind of confusion i must conclude that the 'archive' option is still broken. (tested on TB 16.0.2 under OSX ML)
In Thunderbird version 31.3.0 on Win7 amd64 the Archive "keep folder structure" option is still very broken! The "Inbox" folder is not recreated under the "Archives/2014" folder, when it is archived. The "keep folder structure" option explicitly states that it should recreate the "Inbox" folder. (For messages archived from the Sent folder a corresponding Sent folder is recreated in the Archive.)
I'm still seeing this in Thunderbird 31.4. Generally it's when moving lots of messages at once. Sometimes I can move 100 messages and 98 of them will go to Year\Folder\SubFolder and the other 2 will just end up in Year. Other times all of the messages will end up in Year, and sometimes all of them will end up in Year\Folder\SubFolder like their supposed to. I have a feeling that the more messages you select at once before pressing "A", the higher the chance that some of them don't end up in the right place. You can even see the status bar change from "Moving # of ### messages to CorrectFolder" to "Moving # of ### messages to Year" halfway through the archive process sometimes.
Hello I just updated to 31.4 and I still see this bug: Double check settings -> Copies & Folders -> Message Archives * Archives folder is set to Local Folder * Under Advanced options, "Keep existing folder structure" is checked * Set to archive by year When I go to archive a message from the inbox of that account, it goes directly under year. I'm seeing this: 2014 -> EMAIL MESSAGE Should be seeing this: 2014 -> Inbox ----> EMAIL MESSAGE If I do it from DRAFTS or from TRASH or from SENT, or even from user defined folders, I get the expected behavior. (This might be related to having set "IMAP server directory" to "Inbox" - something which alot of us do to avoid having everything under inbox). (Separate issue but possibly related) Furthermore, if you, archive that message again, accidentally perhaps, it creates yet another sub folder (ad infinitum). Expected behavior is difficult to say since the local folder does not have a "Copies & Folders" settings section, but seems like it shouldn't be nesting them like this - or messages shouldn't be archiveable within the archive. 2014 -> Archives ----> 2014 --------> EMAIL MESSAGE
Yeah, the problem still exists in 31.4 and it's really annoying. The preview under "Copies & Folders -> Message Archives -> Advanced" shows how you would expect it to be (Inbox folder under your archive folder), but when you try to archive something from your inbox, it appears directly in the archive folder and not in a separate inbox folder below it.
I thought this bug was about subfolders not working at all. The Inbox is the root folder of all your subfolders and I think it is *expected* that it would be the root folder (the year or month folder) when you archive. There is no problem there. If I have Inbox and Inbox\Subfolder, I would expect them to go to 2015 and 2015\Subfolder, respectively, not 2015\Inbox and 2015\Subfolder. The issue here is that sometimes (seemingly at random) the mail from Inbox\Subfolder is just getting archived to 2015. No subfolders are used at all. You can select 200 messages in Inbox\Subfolder and press the Archive button, and sometimes half of them will end up in 2015\Subfolder like you want, and the other half will just get merged into 2015 with your archived messages from Inbox. I've learned that when I want to archive messages at the end of the year, I have to make sure to do Inbox *LAST*, and check to make sure it's still empty after archiving each of my 20 subfolders. That's the only way to make sure I don't end up merging messages from different folders together while archiving.
When I read the title and the first message for this bug report, there was nothing about "random". It's happen all the time (is reproducible). And no, this is not an expected behaviour, because I expect it to work like in the preview of the dialog box, and it doesn't work like that. It ignores the inbox sub folder.
The example in the options is clearly wrong. I mean, if you select "Yearly", and you have Inbox, Inbox\aaa, Inbox\bbb, and Inbox\bbb\2, why would you want 2015\Inbox, 2015\Inbox\aaa, 2015\Inbox\bbb, and 2015\Inbox\bbb\2? The existence of the extra "Inbox" folder under the 2015 is just pointless. 2015, 2015\aaa, 2015\bbb, and 2015\bbb\2 make more sense to me. The problem is messages from all 4 folders will randomly end up in "2015" instead of the subfolders as they should. I think there should be a separate bug opened up to correct the example in the options to not show "Inbox" but to instead say "subfolder" in its place.
No, the example does it how it should be. I archive all my mails from several accounts into one local folder called "Archive". There I store the entire folder structure of all my IMAP accounts in sub folders. And that's why I want it to be in the same structure. I can go back 5 years and have the same folder structure I had 5 years ago with all the mails from that time. When you just simply test that you'll notice very quickly that it is better to have the inbox at the same Tree-Level as you have all your other folders. Else you would have to ask yourself: Why do you have an inbox folder at all and don't throw incoming mails under the account name itself. Answer: Usability
I don't see how multiple accounts factors into this at all either. I have several accounts as well. Each seems to use it's own Archives folders specific to that account. There is a bug here, but what you're talking about is a matter of opinion, not this bug that's already opened. Your bug is basically a mismatch between the example shown in the options window and how the folder structure is actually created (when it works) in the Archives folder. Open a new bug if you want for that, but I maintain that for that bug, the problem is that the example in the options window is wrong, not that the folders are created wrong. I would be very upset if Thunderbird changed this to start pointlessly including an extra "Inbox" subfolder, so that each Year folder under Archives was just a container for exactly one item (the Inbox subfolder). It seems absolutely pointless to me, and I don't want to change the 14 years of archives I have built up because of this. I think the only reason the non-Archived Inbox folder is called Inbox is because you can't just call it "". Literally every other folder I put mail into is a subfolder of Inbox.
(In reply to Ryan Rubley from comment #20) > I would be very upset if Thunderbird > changed this to start pointlessly including an extra "Inbox" subfolder, so > that each Year folder under Archives was just a container for exactly one > item (the Inbox subfolder). No, that's not true. If you want a flat structure, just don't check the option to maintain sub folders. Maintaining Sub folder's is exactly what this option offers but it doesn't actually do it. (In reply to Ryan Rubley from comment #20) > Literally every other folder I put mail into is a subfolder of Inbox. Yeah, that's why you don't get the point. There are people out there that archive not only mails from the inbox. I've to store everything, including stuff the I sent, and even my templates for that year. And I don't see how my problem shouldn't be related to that bug report. It's exactly what I'm talking about. The preview mismatch is just a side effect.
I don't want a flat structure. I have 20+ folders and subfolders on a single account. I archive them all and keep the structure. I think the issue you're having is that your subfolders aren't subfolders of your Inbox. I did not even occur to me until just now that it is even possible in Thunderbird to create other folders that live at the same level as Inbox. In my mail organization scheme, Inbox is the root folder, and every other folder I filter mail into is a subfolder of Inbox. I still think that this bug is still about the folder structure randomly not being kept, and all messages ending up in the Year folder, despite the box "Keep existing folder structure of archived messages" being checked. I think they would have to add another checkbox as an option, to say if you want Inbox as the root folder (like it is now, and how I want it) or Inbox as a subfolder and the root folder as a dummy folder that is incapable of storing messages (which is what you want, because you consider your account name in the tree on the left as your "root folder"). Having this option added should be a separate bug.
Hi @all, I have the same problem because INBOX in not the only one folder I want to archive. Sent folder for example are not part of INBOX-folder always (depending on provider/mail server). So I understand and share MyCo's point of view. Other products like LotusNotes archive completely folder structure instead of only INBOX also. And the example in archive option menu show the same thing as we want: If box "Keep existing folder structure of archived messages" checked, subfolder INBOX ("Posteingang" in german version) should be created under the date folder in example. This issue is reproducible for me in Win7(64) and Ubuntu 14.04(32) LTS (both with TB version 31.6.0). Please fix this issue
(In reply to Ryan Rubley from comment #18) > The example in the options is clearly wrong. I mean, if you select "Yearly", > and you have Inbox, Inbox\aaa, Inbox\bbb, and Inbox\bbb\2, why would you > want 2015\Inbox, 2015\Inbox\aaa, 2015\Inbox\bbb, and 2015\Inbox\bbb\2? The > existence of the extra "Inbox" folder under the 2015 is just pointless. > 2015, 2015\aaa, 2015\bbb, and 2015\bbb\2 make more sense to me. The problem > is messages from all 4 folders will randomly end up in "2015" instead of the > subfolders as they should. I would not like that. When one selects "keep folder structure", I want exactly that. The folders should be recreated as a spitting image of the original. So it being: 2015\Inbox, 2015\Inbox\aaa, 2015\Inbox\bbb, and 2015\Inbox\bbb\2. > > I think there should be a separate bug opened up to correct the example in > the options to not show "Inbox" but to instead say "subfolder" in its place. That would be a very weak solution in my opinion to change the specification to fit the bug.
@marty: I'm on your side - we want a real "copy of original structure" where Inbox is in same place like before (behind/under) new date folder. This is effectively on large archive interval like every year as in my case. This would be a "complete" Backup including all original folders/files in this time frame. But I think I understand Ryan now. @Ryan Rubley:How often do you want to archive? Do you have other folders beside Inbox on your mail account? Are "Send"-folder inside or beside your infox-folder? In #21 you write inbox is your root folder - but in my case it's not. Different provider handle this different. :-( My main problem is that only inbox folder will be archived current, but my send folder is beside (not inside) inbox. So only received files are archive, but send files are missing.
I archive randomly really. Sometimes every week, sometimes longer. There are 20+ folders, all under Inbox. I just use a basic POP3 account. Again, I don't think this bug was supposed to be about if the preferences keeps your folder structure or not, it's about *randomly* not keeping *any* folder structure and just merging all 20+ folders into one folder, even when the option is always checked. Pressing the "archive" button in Thunderbird just randomly fails, and the failure is pretty bad because it undoes all your message filter's work. You can even move the same messages manually back to the same original folder, archive them again, and get different results.
I have the same problem here and this issue makes the whole archiving system unusuable for me. I have a lot of folders inside my IMAP account. There are plenty sub-folders inside the inbox and even a lot of (top-level) folders besides the inbox. All these folders should be archived locally to reduce the amount of space used in my remote IMAP account. Thus I set the option to keep the folder structure but unfortunately all sub-folders of inbox are re-created (during archiving) as top-level folders within the archive destination. Obviously in the example below all remote folders should be re-created during archiving in the 'Local/Archive' destination. But unfortunately the sub-folders of inbox are pushed one level up (which even may conflict with other top-level folders having the same name). EXAMPLE: *** Folder tree *before* archiving *** Remote/Inbox Remote/Inbox/Amazon Remote/Inbox/eBay Remote/Inbox/Todo Remote/Sent Remote/Sent/Amazon Remote/Sent/eBay Remote/Sent/Todo Local/Archive *** *** Folder tree *after* archiving *** Remote/Inbox Remote/Inbox/Amazon Remote/Inbox/eBay Remote/Inbox/Todo Remote/Sent Remote/Sent/Amazon Remote/Sent/eBay Remote/Sent/Todo Local/Archive Local/Archive/Amazon <--- WRONG PATH; MISSING INBOX Local/Archive/eBay <--- WRONG PATH; MISSING INBOX Local/Archive/Todo <--- WRONG PATH; MISSING INBOX Local/Archive/Sent Local/Archive/Sent/Amazon Local/Archive/Sent/eBay Local/Archive/Sent/Todo *** *** This example below shows the *expected* folder tree (how it should be) *** Remote/Inbox Remote/Inbox/Amazon Remote/Inbox/eBay Remote/Inbox/Todo Remote/Sent Remote/Sent/Amazon Remote/Sent/eBay Remote/Sent/Todo Local/Archive Local/Archive/Inbox Local/Archive/Inbox/Amazon Local/Archive/Inbox/eBay Local/Archive/Inbox/Todo Local/Archive/Sent Local/Archive/Sent/Amazon Local/Archive/Sent/eBay Local/Archive/Sent/Todo ***
This is higher priority than normal from my view. This completely breaks archiving: managing email via folders, and being able to look back and find items is crucial to managing high volumes of email. I can no longer archive email because of this. Eventually, this will break Thunderbird completely, as email folders get unwieldy ... I almost moved back to Outlook because of lack of archiving, the solution saved me from that pain. Now that move is back on the table. One HUGE vote for fix this!
I just want to reiterate my view that having the INBOX subfolder inside of the archived folder is wrong for my usage and I would definitely NOT want that to be the default! I only tend to archive at the start of the year, and archive an entire years worth at once, so I haven't really checked new versions of Thunderbird recently for the bug here as I view it, which is that all the subfolder paths are *randomly* dropped so all your folder's messages are all merged into just Archive/Year regardless of the other subfolders.
Ryan - Yes, I'm echoing the issue with failure to keep folder structure, not articulating a need to preserve inbox as a subfolder. I note you say "random failure" to preserve the folder structure - it's not random for me - it started happening, and now always happens. Mozilla also randomly breaks archived subfolder structure (the archived subfolders, .sdb directories still exist, but the primary folder file, which typically is empty, disappears). So I end up with archive.sdb ->2015.sdb -> Home.sdb subdirectory, but no 2015.sdb->Home file. So I have to go in and manually create the folders, delete the .msf file, and all reappears.
"Oliver Pfeiffer" has explained very well what should happen when the "keep folder structure" option is applied. Formally, comparing the option nominal description against its behavior should be enough to declare it (its behavior) as a bug. The random placement of archived messages across the archive folder structure is a bug as well, at a more severe level (archiving function totally voided). Both this bugs make the use of archiving function impossible for a number of users (I'm amongst them). For some other users, fixing the "random placing" bug would suffice, and for some other users the function is already usable as is (who does not organize messages in subfolders, for instance). I really hope this function will became usable also for users who organize their mailboxes as subfolders structures (not only "Inbox" folder & subfolders need to be archived, but also "Sent" and any other folder the user could have created at the same level, as long as this is allowed).
I just had the scenario where two mails in the same subfolder were archived to two different archive folders. One went to the appropriate archive subfolder, the other to the 2015 archive folder. Both mails are practically identical (even in terms of headers) with the exception of the recipients. The logic that determines exactly where to archive emails seems to be more complex than just preserving the subfolder structure and this manifests in what can only be labelled a bug.
I'm seeing this too, but in a way that seems a bit different from that mentioned above. Most of my email has already been moved from IMAP to local folders, so I have a structure like: Local\Inbox Local\Sent Local\A Local\B etc where A and B typically contain both items I've sent and those I've received. I have archiving set to folders by year and preserve folder structure. If I select the contents of A and archive them, I get the expected folder structure: Local\Archives\20xx\A Local\Archives\20yy\A but it appears that messages I RECEIVED go into the correct place, whereas those I SENT go into the "year" folder. IMHO, "preserve folder structure should do exactly that, whether people have subfolders of Inbox etc, a flat structure as I do, or a combination.
Yea - this should work as shown in the Account Settings - <account> - Copies and Folders - Message Archives - Archive Options - Keep Existing Folder Structure of archived messages See this jpg: http://www.ajawamnet.com/tbirdfup.jpg
(In reply to Malcolm McLean from comment #32) > I just had the scenario where two mails in the same subfolder were archived > to two different archive folders. One went to the appropriate archive > subfolder, the other to the 2015 archive folder. Both mails are practically > identical (even in terms of headers) with the exception of the recipients. Archiving settings (incl. whether to preserve the folder structure) are set per identity, not per account. Might this explain the behavior you saw? In any case, this bug is not about any (seemingly) random behavior; it's about the Inbox folder not being preserved. Any other issues with archiving should be filed as separate bugs.
(In reply to bintoro from comment #36) > Might this explain the behavior you saw? I realised it was related to the identity and not the account a while ago and thought I had posted another comment to that effect, but see I didn't. Sorry for that.
(In reply to bintoro from comment #36) > (In reply to Malcolm McLean from comment #32) > > I just had the scenario where two mails in the same subfolder were archived > > to two different archive folders. One went to the appropriate archive > > subfolder, the other to the 2015 archive folder. Both mails are practically > > identical (even in terms of headers) with the exception of the recipients. > > Archiving settings (incl. whether to preserve the folder structure) are set > per identity, not per account. Might this explain the behavior you saw? > > In any case, this bug is not about any (seemingly) random behavior; it's > about the Inbox folder not being preserved. Any other issues with archiving > should be filed as separate bugs. I wasn't aware of this. This at least respected my _monthly_ archiving folder structure. For some of my accounts I had several identities. Changing the archiving settings of an account, only changed the main identity, i.e. after changing settings in Account -> Manage Identities -> Edit -> Copies & Folders for each identity, the subfolders for months were created. However, the issue with "Keep existing folder structure", is still not ignored.
(In reply to bintoro from comment #36) I just had the exact same behavior whilst archiving, where two mails in the same subfolder were archived to two different archive folders. > > Archiving settings (incl. whether to preserve the folder structure) are set > per identity, not per account. Might this explain the behavior you saw? How can the archiving behavior per identity be set? > > In any case, this bug is not about any (seemingly) random behavior; it's > about the Inbox folder not being preserved. Any other issues with archiving > should be filed as separate bugs. Is there an open bug report for this problem already?
I added a new bug report for the problem of: "two mails in the same subfolder are archived to two different archive folders". See: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1295994
(In reply to marty from comment #39) > How can the archiving behavior per identity be set? Account Settings > Manage Identities > [pick identity] > Copies & Folders > Archive options... The settings directly behind "Account Settings" deal with the default identity only. This is a very poor design because what it does is completely non-obvious, but that complaint, too, is off-topic for this bug.
(In reply to bintoro from comment #41) > (In reply to marty from comment #39) > > How can the archiving behavior per identity be set? > > Account Settings > Manage Identities > [pick identity] > Copies & Folders > > Archive options... Wow, after using Netscape mail; Thunderbird for 20 years now I never knew this. Thanks > > The settings directly behind "Account Settings" deal with the default > identity only. This is a very poor design because what it does is completely > non-obvious, but that complaint, too, is off-topic for this bug. I opened a new bug for that. From now on all posting relating to this issue can be added there. Please feel free to add your comments. (see bug 1295994)
OS: Other → All
Severity: normal → S3
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