Sent emails not being uploaded to server, nor visible in K-9 Mail

I read in other posts that some people have had issues with K-9 Mail not storing sent messages on their phone, nor uploading them to the server. In those posts, the solutions were things I have already tried without success.

Here are the details:
Mail protocol: IMAP (this is happening on more than just one email address and server)
Android version: 12
Kernel version: 5.4.147-24896147-abG998BXXS5CVHI
K-9 Mail version: 6.202
Upload sent messages option is checked and has been since I installed K-9 Mail

Summary of issue:
I send an email from my phone and the email is not stored on the phone, nor is it uploaded to the server. If I send an email using Thunderbird on other devices, K-9 Mail syncs those sent emails on my phone.

What I have tried:
Rebooting phone.
Updating Android (kept up to date, and it has been updated several times over the months K-9 Mail has been installed).
Uninstalling K-9 Mail and then reinstalling it (more than once).
Searching for answers to this issue in the forum and elsewhere; all I found were items related to older versions of K-9 Mail and to make sure the option to upload sent messages is checked. Again, it is.

Am I overlooking something, or is this a bug?

2 Likes

Hi - did you also check at
Settings / account / Folders / Sent folder?

Do you mean settings in K-9 Mail or phone settings? If phone settings, are you saying I would need a file browser to check if they are there?

K9

Yes, that was it. I must say I am disappointed this setting is off by default. I have never seen this as a default setting in over 30 years of working with email clients. At a minimum, it should be covered during setup. Now I have permanently lost all messages sent from my phone for these email addresses. This is the second strike for K-9 Mail in my book.

2 Likes

No, this is not disabled by default. As far as I understood it K9 asks the server for the folders on setup. If the server returns it then it is used - otherwise it is left empty. So in first place it might be something wrong on server config.

There is a thread / request that K9 should show a warning in that case at least.

1 Like

The folder ‘sent’ was created many years ago on the server. Whenever I set up my email, the folder is discovered and added. This case was no exception as K-9 Mail indeed found and included the ‘sent’ folder. The issue I have is that K-9 Mail does not seem to automatically by default save copies of sent mail, which is a major thing for me, and likely is for most users since more and more we are using mobile devices to communicate. This should absolutely be enabled by default, or at least K-9 Mail should warn users that sent messages are not being saved locally nor sent to the server to be saved there.

2 Likes

Servers have the ability to mark certain folders as special folders (archive, drafts, sent, spam, trash). This is independent from the name so it works with arbitrary languages.
If a server doesn’t support this feature, K-9 Mail currently doesn’t automatically select a folder or prompts the user to select one. We’ll fix this when we overhaul the account setup (soon).

But ideally providers will configure their servers to automatically communicate this information to email clients. Users shouldn’t have to manually select special folders.

2 Likes

Thank you for your reply. I just ran into the same issue so I wanted to support it being fixed. I think silently dropping data is not great behavior in any circumstances. I’m glad a fix is already planned.

2 Likes

This is a really appalling bug. I have been thinking that I haven’t been sending emails to people for weeks because other people have messed up, so it has been really distressing to have to chase things up and double check - not good for anyone with ADHD really.
If the sent folder isn’t specified by the server why didn’t you ask for it at account setup?
This is on you K9; a fundamental lack of empathy or forward thinking by the people involved and as it used to work, I would be asking where the hell were the regression tests?

1 Like