Is this not a no-brainer feature?

NumberSix · 29 Apr 2024, 09:04 AM

I've got a feature I'd like to see implemented in the web client. I believe it is so obviously a good thing, and so easy to do, that FM should just do it, even though I may be among only a small subset of users who would benefit from it.

Decide for yourself: Messages that are pinned should not be permanently deleted. That is, if you want to permanently delete (%) a message that is pinned, you need to unpin first. That's it.

The why: I make heavy use of the % keyboard shortcut. Some days, I'm flying along, %'ing a bunch of crap that I get daily in my inbox, and I accidentally select a message (usually in a range) that shouldn't be deleted, but my % hand has a mind of its own, and pushes its shortcut before I can stop it, and I have thus accidentally deleted a message that shouldn't have been. If I had this feature, and I receive something really important that I want to deal with later, I can pin it in order to shield it from my sometimes enthusiastic %ing.

I have asked FM to put this in place, and they refused, saying that it wasn't something many users were asking for. They said no one would type "%" by accident (agreed, that's not the point). They said I can just restore such messages (I didn't realize before how easy they make this, all automated, not even requiring a support ticket).

But to me that sort of misses the point. For one, I'd rather not have to go through the restore process (and this must impose some cost on FM, right? Though I'm not sure how much or in what way). An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right?? To me, it's absolutely logical and right that one should not be able to permanently delete a pinned message. Regardless of whether many people will benefit from this feature, it's the way we should expect things to work. No? And on top of that, it should be extremely simple to implement. Discuss

hadaso · 29 Apr 2024, 09:43 AM

An easy way to avoid this is by not permanently deleting, but just deleting. Then the messages are more easily restored if deleted by mistake, and if not, after a few days or weeks they are permanently deleted (at least that's how my Trash folder is setup. I don't remember if it was the default or I set it up like that).

However, that still doesn't solve the problem if you delete something by mistake and much later you realize it is missing. By then it's not restorable. So it seems that it would be better to have a mechanism that prevents deletion (not just permanent deletion) of messages marked as such, and I guess the most logical way to mark them undeletable would be to pin them. And then perhaps a suitable mechanism would be to at least show a warning that pinned messages are about to be deleted and ask for confirmation.

BritTim · 29 Apr 2024, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hadaso

An easy way to avoid this is by not permanently deleting, but just deleting. Then the messages are more easily restored if deleted by mistake, and if not, after a few days or weeks they are permanently deleted (at least that's how my Trash folder is setup. I don't remember if it was the default or I set it up like that).

However, that still doesn't solve the problem if you delete something by mistake and much later you realize it is missing. By then it's not restorable. So it seems that it would be better to have a mechanism that prevents deletion (not just permanent deletion) of messages marked as such, and I guess the most logical way to mark them undeletable would be to pin them. And then perhaps a suitable mechanism would be to at least show a warning that pinned messages are about to be deleted and ask for confirmation.

I cannot be bothered to test this, but does a deleted message still have the pinned flag? If so, checking once a day or so for deleted messages that are pinned would ensure quick recovery from mistaken deletions. Something similar with a DoNotDelete label could be implemented.

n5bb · 29 Apr 2024, 12:08 PM

I don’t believe that anything needs to be changed. A little less than a month ago I signed up for a new Trial account so i could see how a new account is currently set up. Here is how the system works:

Deleting a message (from any folder other than Trash) moves it to the Trash folder. If the message was pinned before deletion, it will be unpinned after it is moved to Trash by deletion. In other words, deleting a message forces the message to become unpinned. The keyboard shortcut “s” toggles the pinned state for the selected message.
By default on a new account, the Trash folder properties is set to automatically permanently delete unpinned messages after 31 days. This feature can be disabled and the length of time can be modified in the Trash folder Advanced preferences.
The Archive feature (keyboard shortcut “y”) is another method of removing messages from your Inbox. By default, messages in the Archive folder (and other folders other than Trash) are not auto-deleted, but you can change this in the folder advanced preferences.
If a message is important and you want to make sure it is not accidentally lost permanently, you should pin that message if it is in Trash.
If you are worried about loss of a message because you didn’t pin it, just disable the auto deletion feature. You will accumulate a large number of deleted message in your Trash folder, but if you aren’t worried by this because you have a large message quota, just let them accumulate if it makes you feel better
If you don’t like the idea of keeping so many deleted messages, leave the auto-deletion feature enabled and set the deletion interval as you desire. I think that 31 days is an appropriate interval, a least for my purposes.
Again, the auto-delete feature will only delete unpinned messages.

Bill

hadaso · 29 Apr 2024, 07:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BritTim

I cannot be bothered to test this, but does a deleted message still have the pinned flag? If so, checking once a day or so for deleted messages that are pinned would ensure quick recovery from mistaken deletions. Something similar with a DoNotDelete label could be implemented.

When I pin a message and then delete it, I see it in the Trash folder and it is not pinned there. When I undelete it it goes back to the original folder but does not regain its "pinned" status (however if I use the "undo" link that's available for about 5 seconds after deletion, the "pinned" status is restored).
My Trash folder deletes after 14 days. Either I set it this way sometime in the distant past, or it was the default back then.
It's strange that old accounts behave differently with respect to unpinning message upon deletion: I would expect to see a difference if it was something that could be selected in the user preferences (the default for a new user could have changed) but I don't see this choice anywhere in the user setup.

JeremyNicoll · 30 Apr 2024, 04:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by n5bb

[*]Deleting a message (from any folder other than Trash) moves it to the Trash folder. If the message was pinned before deletion, it will still be pinned when in Trash.

Deleted messages lose their pin, here.

n5bb · 30 Apr 2024, 07:56 AM

I apologize! I thought I had carefully tested deleting pinned messages, but I must have made an error. You are correct - the pin on a message is removed when it is deleted, which seems like a bug to me.

I just modified my earlier erroneous post so others don't read that post and get confused.

Bill

hadaso · 30 Apr 2024, 03:58 PM

It seems to me that the most reasonable way would be to:

Not remove pinned status from deleted pinned messages, so they stay indefinitely in the Trash folders until either being undeleted or permanently deleted from there.
Either ask "RU sure" when a user tries to permanently delete a pinned message, or ask the user to unpin the message before deletion.

NumberSix · 1 May 2024, 06:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hadaso

Either ask "RU sure" when a user tries to permanently delete a pinned message, or ask the user to unpin the message before deletion.[/list]

Yes, ^this. Thanks for the discussion.

About pinned messages being normal-deleted: Funny, I was pretty sure what Bill originally said was right - that the pin is kept in the Trash - but upon testing found the same as he, that it is.... no longer. I'm pretty sure it used to be this way. And agree that it should be considered a bug.

Now, if that bug did not exist, if it were the way some of us thought, then a perfectly reasonable workflow would be to pin important things and only use normal-delete, knowing that they would be safe in the Trash from being purged.

The problem is: that's not my workflow, and I don't want to change to that way of working, even if they fix the bug

I prefer to immediately purge (%) anything that I know is of zero future value*, and normal-delete things that I believe are of little or no future value, but may not be sure. And of course I have no purge horizon set on Trash, so my Trash builds up. Which is ok, because after 20 years of working this way, I'm still only using < 4GB of my currently 50GB quota - that's with Archived mail too - so I have no incentive to save space (I tend to remove most attachments from Archived mail anyway). Yes, I still have Trash from 20 years ago, and I agree that's a bit ridiculous

Here's the coup de grace to this whole issue that I should have thought to put in the OP: I forgot that folders/labels have the auto-purge-after-delay feature, which, as noted by some of you, deliberately preserves pinned messages! They have established this behavior as precedent already! Why in the world should they refuse to apply the same behavior to the % key?? If I'm being generous, it's only because they fail to notice this illogic and inconsistency. I wouldn't like to think it's pure stubbornness.

If you'd like to support me in this effort, and put in a feature request to apply the same behavior to %, I'd be very happy, and if others will put this in, then I'll put in another myself, just to try to reach a quorum. Please let us know if you will.

* I feel the need to add, about messages with zero future value: this maybe most of all includes 2FA codes sent by email, which I use with a few financial accounts. I don't want those hanging around in the Trash. Sure, we should hope the originator would invalidate the code instantly upon it's being used, but as a computer pro, I know that one should not trust that much. Yes, I know this paranoia requires that an attacker get access both to my FM and the other account, and the originator have bad software, and that seems really remote, but security is all about good practices, and this is a simple, straightforward one to practice... yes.... let's call it "no-brainer"

TenFour · 1 May 2024, 06:56 AM

Quote:

Decide for yourself: Messages that are pinned should not be permanently deleted. That is, if you want to permanently delete (%) a message that is pinned, you need to unpin first. That's it.

Not interested for me. If I delete a message I want it deleted, end of story. I'd rather not have to unpin it first.

hadaso · 1 May 2024, 07:42 AM

Well, the bottom line is that one should be very careful when permanently deleting.
During the 1990's a colleague showed me how he manages his personal info: he had everything in one big text file in the root directory of his account on the department UNIX host. When he had new info to add, he would open it using vi, and do some stuff that I cannot recall, but at a certain point all the contents of the file would be deleted (and kept in the clipboard) and he had to be very precise in what he did to not have anything replace the clipboard contents before he was ready to restore it into the file. That was all his important info: account numbers, addresses of people, appointments whatever. I have no idea why he did it that way, but it was sort of living on the edge: one glitch and everything you need to know goes to dev/null.

29 Apr 2024, 09:04 AM	#1
NumberSix Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: The Village Posts: 616	Is this not a no-brainer feature? I've got a feature I'd like to see implemented in the web client. I believe it is so obviously a good thing, and so easy to do, that FM should just do it, even though I may be among only a small subset of users who would benefit from it. Decide for yourself: Messages that are pinned should not be permanently deleted. That is, if you want to permanently delete (%) a message that is pinned, you need to unpin first. That's it. The why: I make heavy use of the % keyboard shortcut. Some days, I'm flying along, %'ing a bunch of crap that I get daily in my inbox, and I accidentally select a message (usually in a range) that shouldn't be deleted, but my % hand has a mind of its own, and pushes its shortcut before I can stop it, and I have thus accidentally deleted a message that shouldn't have been. If I had this feature, and I receive something really important that I want to deal with later, I can pin it in order to shield it from my sometimes enthusiastic %ing. I have asked FM to put this in place, and they refused, saying that it wasn't something many users were asking for. They said no one would type "%" by accident (agreed, that's not the point). They said I can just restore such messages (I didn't realize before how easy they make this, all automated, not even requiring a support ticket). But to me that sort of misses the point. For one, I'd rather not have to go through the restore process (and this must impose some cost on FM, right? Though I'm not sure how much or in what way). An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right?? To me, it's absolutely logical and right that one should not be able to permanently delete a pinned message. Regardless of whether many people will benefit from this feature, it's the way we should expect things to work. No? And on top of that, it should be extremely simple to implement. Discuss

29 Apr 2024, 12:08 PM	#4
n5bb Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: May 2004 Location: Irving, Texas Posts: 8,929	I don’t believe that anything needs to be changed. A little less than a month ago I signed up for a new Trial account so i could see how a new account is currently set up. Here is how the system works: Deleting a message (from any folder other than Trash) moves it to the Trash folder. If the message was pinned before deletion, it will be unpinned after it is moved to Trash by deletion. In other words, deleting a message forces the message to become unpinned. The keyboard shortcut “s” toggles the pinned state for the selected message. By default on a new account, the Trash folder properties is set to automatically permanently delete unpinned messages after 31 days. This feature can be disabled and the length of time can be modified in the Trash folder Advanced preferences. The Archive feature (keyboard shortcut “y”) is another method of removing messages from your Inbox. By default, messages in the Archive folder (and other folders other than Trash) are not auto-deleted, but you can change this in the folder advanced preferences. If a message is important and you want to make sure it is not accidentally lost permanently, you should pin that message if it is in Trash. If you are worried about loss of a message because you didn’t pin it, just disable the auto deletion feature. You will accumulate a large number of deleted message in your Trash folder, but if you aren’t worried by this because you have a large message quota, just let them accumulate if it makes you feel better If you don’t like the idea of keeping so many deleted messages, leave the auto-deletion feature enabled and set the deletion interval as you desire. I think that 31 days is an appropriate interval, a least for my purposes. Again, the auto-delete feature will only delete unpinned messages. Bill Last edited by n5bb : 30 Apr 2024 at 08:00 AM. Reason: Corrected an error. The fact is that pinned messages become unpinned when deleted.

30 Apr 2024, 03:58 PM	#8
hadaso The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Holon, Israel. Posts: 4,857	It seems to me that the most reasonable way would be to: Not remove pinned status from deleted pinned messages, so they stay indefinitely in the Trash folders until either being undeleted or permanently deleted from there. Either ask "RU sure" when a user tries to permanently delete a pinned message, or ask the user to unpin the message before deletion.

29 Apr 2024, 09:43 AM	#2
hadaso The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Holon, Israel. Posts: 4,857	An easy way to avoid this is by not permanently deleting, but just deleting. Then the messages are more easily restored if deleted by mistake, and if not, after a few days or weeks they are permanently deleted (at least that's how my Trash folder is setup. I don't remember if it was the default or I set it up like that). However, that still doesn't solve the problem if you delete something by mistake and much later you realize it is missing. By then it's not restorable. So it seems that it would be better to have a mechanism that prevents deletion (not just permanent deletion) of messages marked as such, and I guess the most logical way to mark them undeletable would be to pin them. And then perhaps a suitable mechanism would be to at least show a warning that pinned messages are about to be deleted and ask for confirmation.

30 Apr 2024, 07:56 AM	#7
n5bb Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: May 2004 Location: Irving, Texas Posts: 8,929	I apologize! I thought I had carefully tested deleting pinned messages, but I must have made an error. You are correct - the pin on a message is removed when it is deleted, which seems like a bug to me. I just modified my earlier erroneous post so others don't read that post and get confused. Bill

1 May 2024, 07:42 AM	#11
hadaso The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Holon, Israel. Posts: 4,857	Well, the bottom line is that one should be very careful when permanently deleting. During the 1990's a colleague showed me how he manages his personal info: he had everything in one big text file in the root directory of his account on the department UNIX host. When he had new info to add, he would open it using vi, and do some stuff that I cannot recall, but at a certain point all the contents of the file would be deleted (and kept in the clipboard) and he had to be very precise in what he did to not have anything replace the clipboard contents before he was ready to restore it into the file. That was all his important info: account numbers, addresses of people, appointments whatever. I have no idea why he did it that way, but it was sort of living on the edge: one glitch and everything you need to know goes to dev/null.