[Dovecot] Idea: POP3 deletion as a flag

[Professa Dementia]

On 5/5/2013 11:20 AM, Oscar del Rio wrote:
> On 03/05/2013 12:14 PM, Timo Sirainen wrote:
>> GMail doesn't delete mails when POP3 client issues a DELE command for
>> it. Instead they just become invisible for future POP3 sessions, but
>> they still exist for IMAP/webmail. The same could be implemented
>> pretty easily for Dovecot:
>>
>>   - Add a new setting to enable this: pop3_deleted_flag = $POP3Deleted
>>   - When DELEting a message, add this flag to the message.
>>   - When listing messages, skip all messages that have this flag.
>>   - Also hide this flag from IMAP clients(?)
>>
>> Thoughts? Probably 20 lines of new code.
>>
>>
>
> Outlook live.com webmail has a special (virtual) folder called
> Deleted/POP and the following option:
>
> "If you use POP to download Outlook messages to another program, that
> program could make it so you can't read your messages on Outlook. (For
> example, this might happen if you use Mac Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird.)
> - Don't let another program delete messages from Outlook. (If your other
> program is set to "delete messages from the server," we'll simply move
> them to a special POP folder. They won't be deleted.)
> - Do what my other program says—if it says to delete messages, then
> delete them. "
>

This is fine.  The user is informed and makes a choice about the 
behavior of the server.  The problem I have with the proposed changes by 
Timo is that the user is *not* informed and has no choice.  The user may 
expect that the server behaves in a standard manner, but it may not, 
based on decisions of the system admin.  The user has no way of knowing 
this behavior - only the system admin knows.

Dem