Re: Mail to self

[Leo Gaspard <leo@gaspard.ninja>]

Hi Gregor,

Gregor Zattler <telegraph@gmx.net> writes:
> For me, when I filtered emails in several folders and read them
> with mutt (1) it was the other way around: I wished for the
> possibility to mark them as read in all folders if read in one.

This isn't incompatible, and I'm not wishing that notmuch stop marking
as read per-message.

However, I *am* wishing that when some other tool marked one of the
message files as read and not the other, notmuch takes the safe route of
marking the overall message as unread in its database.

> But why would you tag a message (as opposed to a file) as
> "unread" because it's a duplicate?

Because usual folder-based applications display an unread marker with
the number of unread messages near the folder, and this is a useless
visual disturbance for the people for whom I administer the mail server.

> If it's somehow important to you to know that a certain email
> your read via notmuch is a duplicate, why not tag it as
> "duplicate" instead?

This is not a problem in notmuch (notmuch anyway just assumes that
duplicates with the same Message-ID will never happen, which in my
opinion is a bit optimistic, but I guess this design point is not going
to change anyway and so am not going to argue further), but it is a
problem with folder-based applications.

When using a folder-based application, I don't want a Duplicates folder
always popping up in my folder list with new messages until I read them,
I want a Duplicates folder only to debug when things go weird and
messages appear missing.

> For the specific case of the duplicates folder: [...]

Yes, now that I'm aware of this issue I can adapt my setup, likely by
not indexing the duplicates folder indeed.

However, I still think this is a big footgun, and take my missing 9
emails in the first 2 weeks of notmuch as proof of it.

Just to repeat it at the end so my objective is clear:

What I am wishing for is that when some tool outside of notmuch marked
one of the message files as read and not the other, upon
`synchronize_flags` notmuch takes the safe route of marking the overall
message as unread in its database.