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Re: expiry =? expunge



Simon Josefsson <jas@pdc.kth.se> writes:
> There is no real problem here if you only use nnimap/gnus. OTOH most
> other IMAP clients do not work this way. They doesn't throw away
> \Deleted articles on default, and also has a way of showing those
> \Deleted articles, nnimap/gnus has not. A \Deleted articles can never

Most IMAP clients have an option of auto-expunging deleted messages
when the folder is closed, in many this is even half-on by default
(the program will ask you whether you want to expunge messages when
you close a folder).

The part that should be improved is that there should be a fairly
simple way of showing \Deleted messages in a folder with
nnimap/gnus. Perhaps nnimap should display the articles pre-marked
somehow? Hmm.. There's a group parameter in Gnus, I believe (visible
. t), which instructs Gnus to display all articles by default when
entering a group. When this is on, does nnimap show also \Deleted
messages? If so, I think the current behaviour is good.

> Now when you quit a group articles with \Deleted marks no longer get
> thrown away (of course), this is how other IMAP clients work. The
> \Deleted articles (older than X days) are deleted when you run the
> expiry process.

You would be changing the semantics of the \Deleted-mark. Think of
what happens when you enter the folder with another client, which
might have the default behaviour of expunging on close. All messages
which the user simply marked expirable in Gnus will be expunged ahead
of time! That could be a major loss of messages to many (I routinely
mark most messages, even those I need to still act on, as expirable,
because I know I won't need the messages 30 days from now and would
rather have software get rid of them after that time).

> What it boils down to is to map the Gnus expiry process into the IMAP
> expiry process. I hadn't realized this was possible, hence the client

Unfortunately, IMAP does not have an expiry process. If it was
possible to execute EXPUNGE on only messages marked as \Deleted AND
more-than-n-days-old, I might agree. Even so, the behaviour of other
clients might make me want to lean on the safe side of an additional
mark.

-- 
Osma Ahvenlampi