Just a suggestion: please add local folders feature like in Thunderbird.

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Hi,

Just a suggestion: please add local folders feature like in Thunderbird.

Thanks

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Hi!

The main idea behind K-9 is to allow synchronization. K-9 does not want to be your only email program and expects that you use email on your PC, too. Creating a local folder would make the email inaccessible on your PC.

Phones are easy to loose, get broken, or get stolen. Important files like an email archive are not a good fit for a device that is so vulnerable. If you exclusively use email on your phone and plan to create local folders, I suggest to look for an email app that allows for exports/backups of the local messages (K-9 only supports exporting the settings, not the messages). Also, make sure to regularly transfer the backups to your PC in case the phone gets lost or broken. Considering that email providers allow to create synchronized folders and have huge amounts of storage space for free, storing your emails exclusively on a phone does not seem advantageous to me.

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There are other use cases. I fetch my email to a PC (“primary email storage”) because my email provider doesn’t offer nearly enough space. Before I fetch to the PC, I fetch to my phone. Sure, it’s not perfectly synced, but the PC always has all received emails (and the phone has >99,5 %), which is good enough for me.

Just being able to copy the cache files K9 uses for locally displayed emails would be really helpful.

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I have to agree with Asperamanca - you are missing some use cases here.

In particular, there seems to be an assumption that devices will be always connected to the network. This may be true for cellphones but is definitely NOT true for the many wifi-only androids we have these days - and in my use case this is the ONLY type of device I have.

Another assumption seems to be that local storage is very limited while bandwidth is not. Since it is a simple matter to buy a 256GB SD card, and modern devices have allowed for these things for many years, the limited storage assumption really makes no sense anymore.

Then there is the matter of almost ignoring POP in favor of IMAP. Yeah, I get it that IMAP can do things that POP does not. But the reverse is also true, and even more imprtant, there are still some providers that have only POP but not IMAP. So push is not an option for these providers, and polling is the only way to go for these. Which makes it rather frustrating to deal with Google’s rules about limiting checks to 15 minute intervals… maybe they also did not consider this use case??? This last point alone is forcing me to only use the older versions that still allowed more frequent checking.

You say

but this stopped being true for POP accounts probably 25 years ago. I have been using local folders on multiple PCs for more than 15 years, one simply marks the checkbox for “leave messages on server” in the account configuration(s) and I have never had a problem with this.

Wanting to have access to ALL my email messages has NOTHING to do with using just one device exclusively; it’s about needing to substitute cheap and abundant local storage for expensive and often unavailable, even nonexistent bandwidth.

And yes, the possibility to import/export the message store would be a HUGE help here. Just imagine, this could be done through USB cable and ADB, no need for nonexistent wireless connectivity, it would make backups MUCH easier.

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I totally agree with you - I literally archive emails on PC (like 10 years archive) so POP3 is a must for me, even with the disadvantage of SENT sync on multiple devices.

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I archive all my emails on my PC with Thunderbird but I switched to IMAP ages ago.

Simply create all the storage folders you want on your PC, like Amazon, eBay, Registrations, etc and then move emails from Inbox or Sent into the storage folders.

POP isn’t needed for that - it’s an ancient protocol and you’ll do better using IMAP :slightly_smiling_face:

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I’d really lile to see this feature as well. :+1:

Both yes and no, right? If you’re on a POP-account, then yes - but, if on an IMAP-account it would sync right up.

The issue I have right now, as new/more emails are dropping in - I need to go online to the webmail, create the folders, then go back into the app, and refresh the folder list. Then I can start sorting my emails.

If it’s a POP-accoumt (downloading all)… Of course I’d like to be able to sort my emails into folders. No one likes a crowded inbox. I know I don’t. :smile:

I thing I’ve noticed… When creating a subfolder online, and syncing it back. The subfolder shows up as its own, but with the name pattern:

  • foldername
  • foldernam.subfoldername

I guess it’s ok’ish. But one of the benefits to create subfolders are to reduce the lenght of the list with folders.

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This is a behaviour that depends on the server software you are using.

Most Linux servers use the pattern you describe. However, I’ve also come across an MTA using ampersands…

Exchange uses forward slashes (when accessed via IMAP).

Beware some servers do not allow dropping emails into folders containing subfolders. On older K-9 versions mails moved into such folders got lost without an error message.

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Aah… I see. Thanks for explaining. :+1:

Well, online - on the webail - it shows with a folder inside the other. When creating the folder there I get to chose parent folder. In the folder list it then shows up as (normal):

  • foldername
    • subfoldername

In the phone, like I wrote before:

  • foldername
  • foldername.subfoldername

I assumed it was maybe K-9’s way of listing folders. Not based on the serverside software.

// The webmail use Rainloop by the way.

It’s ok’ish though… just makes the list of folders longer.

But, whatever listing we get - it’d be still very useful to be able to create the folders in the app - instead of going online. As in saving time.