[Dovecot] Defer emails until the user is ready to deal with them (snooze button / bring-forward file / bring-up file for emails)
Hi, I would like to add a feature to my email-client (Thunderbird) which stops emails from showing up until a specific time (e.g. having buttons for: show again this evening, tomorrow, next week, next month ...).
As far as I've learned this is not possible with IMAP: problems especially with large emails
- storing the 'do-not-show-until-time' within a custom header-field requires down- and uploading of the whole email and therefore causes
- IMAP keywords are limited are limited in quantity and can not be compared with datetime functions
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
Chris
Am 16.02.2013 12:44, schrieb Chris Laif:
Hi, I would like to add a feature to my email-client (Thunderbird) which stops emails from showing up until a specific time (e.g. having buttons for: show again this evening, tomorrow, next week, next month ...).
As far as I've learned this is not possible with IMAP: problems especially with large emails
- storing the 'do-not-show-until-time' within a custom header-field requires down- and uploading of the whole email and therefore causes
sounds more like a social problem then a technical touching the e-mails is a very very bad idea because you may break them what does it help DOWNLOAD the mails, hide them and touch them
you said "I would like to add a feature to my email-client" so why do you need to add headers to them? what has the server to do with this all and why would you touch the mails for this?
if the user is not ready to deal with mails -> close TB
On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Reindl Harald h.reindl@thelounge.net wrote:
you said "I would like to add a feature to my email-client" so why do you need to add headers to them? what has the server to do with this all and why would you touch the mails for this?
People are accessing their (IMAP-)inboxes from multiple computers/devices these days, so all information has to be stored on the server.
Chris
Am 16.02.2013 13:46, schrieb Chris Laif:
On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Reindl Harald h.reindl@thelounge.net wrote:
you said "I would like to add a feature to my email-client" so why do you need to add headers to them? what has the server to do with this all and why would you touch the mails for this?
People are accessing their (IMAP-)inboxes from multiple computers/devices these days, so all information has to be stored on the server.
sorry but this all is nonsense and the context "i want to implement a feature in TB but multiple devices" it makes no sense
if you do not want to see new mails do not check for them - no need to mangle messages
switch TB in the offline-mode or clsoe the mail-client based on WHAT will wahtever you think you need to implement dec ide "if the user is ready"
if you do not want to see new mails do not check for them - no need to mangle messages
switch TB in the offline-mode or clsoe the mail-client based on WHAT will wahtever you think you need to implement dec ide "if the user is ready"
Sorry, but that's not what I meant. After reading a message, I would like to decide that this very specific message should disappear from my mailbox for some time (I'am not able to handle/answer this email today, so it should reappear tomorrow/next week/...).
I agree that this transforms email into a kind of todo/task-list. But many people I know are using email-accounts this way. Gmail and mailboxapp.com (and probably more) offer similar features, just google for 'snooze email'.
Very likely it is not necessary to modifiy Thunderbird (or any other email-client) for this. You just have to set up a filter folder 'do-not-show-until-time'>now().
Chris
Am 16.02.2013 17:50, schrieb Chris Laif:
if you do not want to see new mails do not check for them - no need to mangle messages
switch TB in the offline-mode or clsoe the mail-client based on WHAT will wahtever you think you need to implement dec ide "if the user is ready"
Sorry, but that's not what I meant. After reading a message, I would like to decide that this very specific message should disappear from my mailbox for some time (I'am not able to handle/answer this email today, so it should reappear tomorrow/next week/...)
and this is why you would touch the message-headers? what the hell - IMAP supports folders and subfolders
under my inbox are 30 subfolders and i get between 300 and 500 messages per day with a usual response time of 5 minutes as you can see becuase some of them are important and some of them are archived
for reminders -> thunderbird lightning
as said - this is a social and not a technical problem
Hi Chris,
Chris Laif wrote:
After reading a message, I would like to decide that this very specific message should disappear from my mailbox for some time (I'am not able to handle/answer this email today, so it should reappear tomorrow/next week/...).
Well, I simply move some mail into a folder called "Todo" and as soon as I've got time, handle all mails in this folder.
You could even write a script, which marks the messages in the Todo folder via IMAP as "new" or "unread" after a specified time, but this is rather a client-side issue and should not be handled by Dovecot.
Regards Daniel
Am 16.02.2013 13:46, schrieb Chris Laif:
On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Reindl Harald h.reindl@thelounge.net wrote:
you said "I would like to add a feature to my email-client" so why do you need to add headers to them? what has the server to do with this all and why would you touch the mails for this?
People are accessing their (IMAP-)inboxes from multiple computers/devices these days, so all information has to be stored on the server.
Chris
perhaps
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3864
may helpfull
Best Regards MfG Robert Schetterer
-- [*] sys4 AG
http://sys4.de, +49 (89) 30 90 46 64 Franziskanerstraße 15, 81669 München
Sitz der Gesellschaft: München, Amtsgericht München: HRB 199263 Vorstand: Patrick Ben Koetter, Axel von der Ohe, Marc Schiffbauer Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Joerg Heidrich
Am 16.02.2013 12:44, schrieb Chris Laif:
Hi, I would like to add a feature to my email-client (Thunderbird) which stops emails from showing up until a specific time (e.g. having buttons for: show again this evening, tomorrow, next week, next month ...).
yeah ,there are lot of nice new ideas with mail these days
As far as I've learned this is not possible with IMAP: problems especially with large emails
- storing the 'do-not-show-until-time' within a custom header-field requires down- and uploading of the whole email and therefore causes
- IMAP keywords are limited are limited in quantity and can not be compared with datetime functions
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
however some server coders will may include new features, that does not solve the client problem, the only existing free major cross os imap client recent is thunderbird, but i dont see mozilla willing to push more development in it. After all ,there is lot of "old" bleeding edge stuff for left implement in Thunderbird, before including new ideas.
Chris
Best Regards MfG Robert Schetterer
-- [*] sys4 AG
http://sys4.de, +49 (89) 30 90 46 64 Franziskanerstraße 15, 81669 München
Sitz der Gesellschaft: München, Amtsgericht München: HRB 199263 Vorstand: Patrick Ben Koetter, Axel von der Ohe, Marc Schiffbauer Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Joerg Heidrich
On Sat, 2013-02-16 at 12:44 +0100, Chris Laif wrote:
Hi, I would like to add a feature to my email-client (Thunderbird) which stops emails from showing up until a specific time (e.g. having buttons for: show again this evening, tomorrow, next week, next month ...).
As far as I've learned this is not possible with IMAP: problems especially with large emails
- storing the 'do-not-show-until-time' within a custom header-field requires down- and uploading of the whole email and therefore causes
- IMAP keywords are limited are limited in quantity and can not be compared with datetime functions
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5257 could be used for this. Of course, Dovecot doesn't support it, and it's not easy to implement efficiently.
Probably not too difficult to implement inefficiently with v2.2's mailbox_attribute_* API. Just create /annotations/<uid>/<key> mailbox attributes and delete them when the mails get expunged..
On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 5:43 PM, Timo Sirainen tss@iki.fi wrote:
As far as I've learned this is not possible with IMAP: problems especially with large emails
- storing the 'do-not-show-until-time' within a custom header-field requires down- and uploading of the whole email and therefore causes
- IMAP keywords are limited are limited in quantity and can not be compared with datetime functions
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5257 could be used for this. Of course, Dovecot doesn't support it, and it's not easy to implement efficiently.
Probably not too difficult to implement inefficiently with v2.2's mailbox_attribute_* API. Just create /annotations/<uid>/<key> mailbox attributes and delete them when the mails get expunged..
Thanks Timo, at least one person understands me ;-) Unfortunately, both solutions require programming skills far better than I have. So I start enjoying my weekend doing other things ... thank you for your great work on dovecot!
Chris
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On Sat, 16 Feb 2013, Chris Laif wrote:
Thanks Timo, at least one person understands me ;-) Unfortunately, both solutions require programming skills far better than I have. So I start enjoying my weekend doing other things ... thank you for your great work on dovecot!
I like Daniel's idea:
- Have Thunderbird move unwanted messages to Delayed/<time>
- Have a cron job on the server that moves the messages back to INBOX.
Steffen Kaiser -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
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Am 18.02.2013 10:03, schrieb Steffen Kaiser:
Have a cron job on the server that moves the messages back to INBOX.
Hi Steffen, please describe how such cron should be invoked , created, edited, deleted with some user friendly interface i.e in some sieve webmail client or thunderbird, using tons of different guis for different jobs is not very nice, ideally such functions should be able to handle from a thunderbird plugin then etc
this is not a general critic at this idea, but it must match real world sceanrios like isp setup etc at last
Best Regards MfG Robert Schetterer
-- [*] sys4 AG
http://sys4.de, +49 (89) 30 90 46 64 Franziskanerstraße 15, 81669 München
Sitz der Gesellschaft: München, Amtsgericht München: HRB 199263 Vorstand: Patrick Ben Koetter, Axel von der Ohe, Marc Schiffbauer Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Joerg Heidrich
Robert Schetterer wrote:
Am 18.02.2013 10:03, schrieb Steffen Kaiser:
move the messages back to INBOX ideally such functions should be able to handle from a thunderbird plugin
What about http://mailmindr.net/
Regards Daniel
Am 18.02.2013 21:36, schrieb Daniel Parthey:
Robert Schetterer wrote:
Am 18.02.2013 10:03, schrieb Steffen Kaiser:
move the messages back to INBOX ideally such functions should be able to handle from a thunderbird plugin
What about http://mailmindr.net/
Regards Daniel
Hi Daniel, simply try it , and look if it fits to your needs, but i guess there is no real relation to the imap server you use, it may be a client function ,only, please test and report
Best Regards MfG Robert Schetterer
-- [*] sys4 AG
http://sys4.de, +49 (89) 30 90 46 64 Franziskanerstraße 15, 81669 München
Sitz der Gesellschaft: München, Amtsgericht München: HRB 199263 Vorstand: Patrick Ben Koetter, Axel von der Ohe, Marc Schiffbauer Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Joerg Heidrich
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Mon, 18 Feb 2013, Robert Schetterer wrote:
Am 18.02.2013 10:03, schrieb Steffen Kaiser:
Have a cron job on the server that moves the messages back to INBOX.
please describe how such cron should be invoked , created, edited, deleted with some user friendly interface i.e in some sieve webmail client or thunderbird, using tons of different guis for different jobs is not very nice, ideally such functions should be able to handle from a thunderbird plugin then etc
I do not believe that the original post was about an ISP scenario.
Hence:
- "snooze" button -> move to TODO *)
- manual access (bring up / ready to deal with) via TODO mailbox
- automatic: a static cron script monitors this mailbox for new messages and moves the message into INBOX after it appeared a certain amount of idle time or after a certain day time. **)
*) in combination with mail_log one could move the message back to the original mailbox, when the cron job reinjects it. One could have more than one snooze button to spool the message into a submailbox under TODO describing the snooze time. Then a virtual TODO could merge them together to have a chronologic list of all messages.
**) Depends on the mail storage backend, e.g. one could use an inotify/epoll server for Maildir.
Actually, this was my first setup to report SPAM. Each user had a mailbox "ReportSPAM", which was monitored hourly. If the script detected a new message, it was learned has SPAM, after 7 days or so the message was deleted; if it vanished before the automatic deletion (user deleted it), the message was re-learned as HAM. The antispam plugin replaced that script. I extended the idea with the automatic "move back to INBOX".
In fact, in the last time some people are asking about something like "snooze til Monday 6 o'clock in the Morning" and "delay sending Monday 6 o'clock in the Morning".
Kind regards,
Steffen Kaiser -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
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Am 19.02.2013 09:39, schrieb Steffen Kaiser:
On Mon, 18 Feb 2013, Robert Schetterer wrote:
Am 18.02.2013 10:03, schrieb Steffen Kaiser:
Have a cron job on the server that moves the messages back to INBOX.
please describe how such cron should be invoked , created, edited, deleted with some user friendly interface i.e in some sieve webmail client or thunderbird, using tons of different guis for different jobs is not very nice, ideally such functions should be able to handle from a thunderbird plugin then etc
I do not believe that the original post was about an ISP scenario.
yeah, maybe right, however ,i guess there will be more questions about new mail handlings in the near future, if they should spread widely they should fit in isp alike setups, just my personal meaning
Hence:
- "snooze" button -> move to TODO *)
- manual access (bring up / ready to deal with) via TODO mailbox
- automatic: a static cron script monitors this mailbox for new messages and moves the message into INBOX after it appeared a certain amount of idle time or after a certain day time. **)
*) in combination with mail_log one could move the message back to the original mailbox, when the cron job reinjects it. One could have more than one snooze button to spool the message into a submailbox under TODO describing the snooze time. Then a virtual TODO could merge them together to have a chronologic list of all messages.
**) Depends on the mail storage backend, e.g. one could use an inotify/epoll server for Maildir.
Actually, this was my first setup to report SPAM. Each user had a mailbox "ReportSPAM", which was monitored hourly. If the script detected a new message, it was learned has SPAM, after 7 days or so the message was deleted; if it vanished before the automatic deletion (user deleted it), the message was re-learned as HAM. The antispam plugin replaced that script. I extended the idea with the automatic "move back to INBOX".
off topic , i have simply a forward mail address for auto ham/spam learning, but nearly none uses it cause the false postive rate is nearly none
In fact, in the last time some people are asking about something like "snooze til Monday 6 o'clock in the Morning" and "delay sending Monday 6 o'clock in the Morning".
interesting, nobody here ,asked about such stuff, but from outside i see a lot of questions about such functions and more
Kind regards,
-- Steffen Kaiser
Best Regards MfG Robert Schetterer
-- [*] sys4 AG
http://sys4.de, +49 (89) 30 90 46 64 Franziskanerstraße 15, 81669 München
Sitz der Gesellschaft: München, Amtsgericht München: HRB 199263 Vorstand: Patrick Ben Koetter, Axel von der Ohe, Marc Schiffbauer Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Joerg Heidrich
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On Tue, 19 Feb 2013, Robert Schetterer wrote:
In fact, in the last time some people are asking about something like "snooze til Monday 6 o'clock in the Morning" and "delay sending Monday 6 o'clock in the Morning".
interesting, nobody here ,asked about such stuff, but from outside i see a lot of questions about such functions and more
Yes, it is a social problem (as I am aware of) mostly. The basic ideas are:
a) you cannot separate private from work mail address or better to say: your work address gets misused for private things or some private notion sneaked into a work relationship, therefore you must monitor the work mail account at weekend. They are pushed to your smartphone anyway. Then, you see all these very important messages from the boss or from an employee asking about whatever. If you are tempted to answer, you loose the "relax" portion of the weekend.
b) you don't want to give your colleques or employees the pressure, they have to work at the weekend, just because you write them at the weekend or some late hour at Friday.
Replace "weekend" with vacation or holiday or illness or whatsever. I mean the non-personal "you".
Steffen Kaiser -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
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Am 19.02.2013 12:01, schrieb Steffen Kaiser:
a) you cannot separate private from work mail address or better to say: your work address gets misused for private things or some private notion sneaked into a work relationship, therefore you must monitor the work mail account at weekend. They are pushed to your smartphone anyway. Then, you see all these very important messages from the boss or from an employee asking about whatever. If you are tempted to answer, you loose the "relax" portion of the weekend.
b) you don't want to give your colleques or employees the pressure, they have to work at the weekend, just because you write them at the weekend or some late hour at Friday.
Replace "weekend" with vacation or holiday or illness or whatsever. I mean the non-personal "you".
yes i see, some big companies in germany have anounced to "shut down or delay" email during weekends/holidays, too, giving people the chance to relax,
perhaps it work easy this way, user creates sieve rule like
... mails from ... to myuseraddress put in "specialfolder" with add "specialheader" like "unseen til date" ...
where "specialfolder" has no list imap flag ( hidden, maybe a problem yet )
do some global cron all 5 mins test all mails in all "specialfolder" if "unseen til date" at "specialheader" is reached do doveadm move mail Inbox
didnt checked if that might work with current sieve stuff but such mech is server based ( no need for client plugins, new standards etc), sieve rule interfaces for self user addings exist, global rules are able to coexist same way, "holded" sieve mails have a mark in their header for later debug, more filtering can be added
for sure ,other methods are thinkable and working too, but this should work in isp setup with perhaps minimum changes at dovecot and/or sieve, also the external sieve plugin may help too
"specialfolder" may also be a forwarding email adresse on the same server etc ( but this may change headers, which isnt wanted )
for sure this might not solve all "social" problems, only this special "vacation" case
other stuff which is more "mail workflow" related might be solved better with other mechs i.e inventing a imap "hidden" until date flag etc
Best Regards MfG Robert Schetterer
-- [*] sys4 AG
http://sys4.de, +49 (89) 30 90 46 64 Franziskanerstraße 15, 81669 München
Sitz der Gesellschaft: München, Amtsgericht München: HRB 199263 Vorstand: Patrick Ben Koetter, Axel von der Ohe, Marc Schiffbauer Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Joerg Heidrich
Am 19.02.2013 13:18, schrieb Robert Schetterer:
other stuff which is more "mail workflow" related might be solved better with other mechs i.e inventing a imap "hidden" until date flag etc
i am not an rfc expert
but if i read
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-sieve-imap-sieve-09
2.2.1. The IMAP APPEND Command
A message may be added to a mailbox through the IMAP APPEND command. In a server that advertises "imapsieve", new messages added in this way MUST trigger the execution of a Sieve script, subject to the settings defined through Metadata (see Section 2.3.1).
If the IMAP server also supports the IMAP MultiAppend extension [RFC3502], the APPEND command can create more than one message at a time. In that case, each message creation is considered a separate event, and any applicable Sieve script is called once for each message.
if should be possible to execute sieve scripts and workflow with mail stuff should be solved this way ,in the future
Best Regards MfG Robert Schetterer
-- [*] sys4 AG
http://sys4.de, +49 (89) 30 90 46 64 Franziskanerstraße 15, 81669 München
Sitz der Gesellschaft: München, Amtsgericht München: HRB 199263 Vorstand: Patrick Ben Koetter, Axel von der Ohe, Marc Schiffbauer Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Joerg Heidrich
Am 19.02.2013 14:06, schrieb Robert Schetterer:
Am 19.02.2013 13:18, schrieb Robert Schetterer:
other stuff which is more "mail workflow" related might be solved better with other mechs i.e inventing a imap "hidden" until date flag etc
i am not an rfc expert
but if i read
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-sieve-imap-sieve-09
2.2.1. The IMAP APPEND Command
A message may be added to a mailbox through the IMAP APPEND command. In a server that advertises "imapsieve", new messages added in this way MUST trigger the execution of a Sieve script, subject to the settings defined through Metadata (see Section 2.3.1).
If the IMAP server also supports the IMAP MultiAppend extension [RFC3502], the APPEND command can create more than one message at a time. In that case, each message creation is considered a separate event, and any applicable Sieve script is called once for each message.
well APPEND is exactly what is done when your client copies a message to the server (drafts and whatever)
participants (6)
-
Chris Laif
-
Daniel Parthey
-
Reindl Harald
-
Robert Schetterer
-
Steffen Kaiser
-
Timo Sirainen