Sent mail settings inconsistency

[Virgilio]

Upon creating a new account, one may encounter the problem described here:

Mails sent from phone are not stored in Sent on phone and mail server

I’m using K9 v5.806 on Android 7 (German GUI). The mail server is on my (newly set up) NAS and various mailboxes are synced via IMAP with the Kubuntu Linux PC and Android 7 phone without any problems - at least the inboxes and their subfolders. Sending and receiving messages is no problem on PC and phone. Mail server and PC are synchronized as expected. The Problem: Messages sent from the phone arrive, but are not stored in Sent either in the mail server or on the phone. In K9 in MAILBOX > Sent…

Basically, mail is sent successfully, but is NOT uploaded to the Sent folder.
Yes, there is a settings to specify:
Account settings/Sending mail / Upload sent messages
which is set active BY DEFAULT.
But even with that option set as active (by default), the problem persists: mail successfully sent is NOT uploaded to the Sent folder.

This results in much wasted time and frustration (some may even give up on the app for this simple reason).

The solution to this annoying problem seems to be in the FOLDERS settings:
Account settings/Folders/ Sent folder

Sent folder is by default set as NONE! With this choice, the app simply ignores (without warning) the “Upload sent messages” directive.

There is here a clear inconsistency, and perhaps a bug.
Inconsistency: If by default, “upload sent messages” is active, then by default also, the Sent folder should NOT be set as NONE (both settings are inconsistent with each other).

Possible bug: If the Sent folder has been set as NONE (by default or otherwise), then the option “Upload sent messages” should be grayed out, so that the user knows that under such settings it is impossible to activate this option (it would be nice if app explicitly tells the user that s/he must first activate a Sent folder in the Folders settings).

[stphn]

Yes, it would be good to get a warning if certain settings do not fit together.

[cketti]

K-9 Mail uses the SPECIAL-USE (see RFC 6154) extension to configure special folders like the Sent folder. Most email providers support this and things work just fine.

There’s already a feature request to prompt users to configure special folders when the server doesn’t support this extensions. See Prompt users to configure special folders during account setup · Issue #5826 · k9mail/k-9 · GitHub

[Virgilio]

Thank you, cketti, for your explanations. I am glad to know that this issue has already attracted attention from the developers community.

Prompting the user to configure folders when appropriate might be a nice feature.

However, what the app is currently doing should be viewed as a mal-function (not something to be addressed via a new feature).

The app allows the user to activate the “upload sent messages” setting (in fact it is activated by the default), even when the app SHOULD know that such option cannot work (because of the folders issue). Then the app simply ignores the setting.

As suggested earlier, the app could, as an alternative, for example, inactivate the “upload sent messages” option, and prevent the user from setting it. Simply ignoring the setting, while misleading the user into thinking that the option can work would not seem an acceptable way to handle the situation. That is, it should be treated as a bug, IMHO.