messages not getting flagged Seen in IMAP store

[Osma Ahvenlampi <oa@spray.fi>]

I'm using gnus 5.6.43 (upgraded today from a patched .42) with nnimap
0.3.31 on my 20-some IMAP folders. While I can access the folders
without serious problems (if the connection closes due to inactivity,
I do get an error that requires some jumping through hoops, but I can
live with that for now), and messages I read in Gnus get marked
read/expired within Gnus (I use message expiry instead of manual
delete, and most folders are set up as total-expire).

However, the marking scheme is confusing. Until 5 minutes ago, I
thought nnimap was not flagging messages \Seen in the IMAP store at
all, and the marks only were set in .newsrc.eld (thus Gnus thought the
message had been read (as it was), but other IMAP clients would show
it as new).

After some additional research, I'm not so certain about this. For
example, I have a ticked message from Friday in the INBOX that has no
IMAP flags set (should be (\Seen \Flagged), I think). Another message
that Gnus shows with the E mark is also unflagged. However, if I mark
a message deleted in Gnus with the 'd' key and exit the group, IMAP
will show the message (\Seen). If I re-enter the group with Gnus, the
message will show up with the O mark. If I now expire the message
again (pressing 'E') and exit the group, IMAP will have it flagged as
(\Seen gnus-expire). Hmm.. This is finally beginning to show some
signs of consistency, and I can actually understand what's going on.

If it helps anything, my normal way of using Gnus on mail folders goes
something like this: in total-expire groups, I read messages with
space, and sometimes kill entire threads with k. Every once in a
while, I skip individual articles with d, but if that changes to mean
the article is immediately marked for deletion (for nnmail it doesn't
seem to mean anything special at all), it's an easy habit to get rid
of (or if not, doesn't matter much anyway - I rarely go back to read
those messages)

In groups not total-expired, I mark unimportant messages with E and
trust Gnus to expire them 7-90 days from now (based on the group's
parameters). Everything else remains marked R (the mark it gets when I
select the message with space).

-- 
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
Osma Ahvenlampi <oa@spray.fi>