Solved Offline Account -> mail client -> desktop Browser

fjc1029

My take is that with offline account the mails are saved on your machine, where without OA the mails are in your browser (email client) and the V. servers only .. not on your machine?

Ayespy

@fjc1029 An offline account is an account that only has access to locally-stored mails. It does not connect with the internet to try to fetch or send emails.

A normal account will usually have mail stored locally and have access to remotely-stored mail as well. It will send and receive email (or at least be able to).

fjc1029

@ayespy Thank you for your prompt response.
So by saying 'locally-stored mails' do you mean it is on the computer hard drive instead of on the mail servers?

Ayespy

@fjc1029 Yes, on the hard drive. There may be copies of them on the server as well, but the only ones accessed by an offline client will be those stored on your machine.

fjc1029

@ayespy Thank you so much for helping me understand this, I am grateful indeed!

So then I can turn this off and no mails will be on the hard drive, only in the client and on the servers.

Ayespy

@fjc1029 That is incorrect.

Vivaldi's email client stores emails locally if you ever fetch emails. If it didn't it would only be a web portal, not a mail client. It does have the option to disconnect it from the web and deal only with mail you have already downloaded or imported, but if you are sending and receiving emails, it is storing them on your hard drive. If you disconnect it from the web, it is still storing anything you received or sent prior to the time you did that.

If you don't want emails on your machine, don't use an email client. Just use a webmail account and interact with your emails remotely through a browser window.

fjc1029

@ayespy thanks. I don't want mails filling my hard drive, but with V webmail to use aliases you have to use Mail client. I posted in the aliases thread to confirm this. So then I just need to keep my inbox clean as possible to acheive both .....

gmg

@jebah @Trevo525 @fjc1029 @Pesala @Ayespy

Just to reiterate. The following observations from @jebah and @Trevo525 are correct. I should add this to the help pages.

@trevo525 said in Offline Account -> mail client -> desktop Browser:

You can still send email.

Message changes (moving folders, deleting, etc.) in Vivaldi aren't reflected to the server.

Messages changes (Same as above but also receiving new mail) on the server aren't reflected in Vivaldi.

Ayespy

@gmg Thanks for that clarity. I had never tried to send email with an offline account, and so didn't know that was an option.

crabladyanne

I know this has been touched on, but I'm not sure what steps I need to take. So I apologize upfront for asking anything already answered.

My gmail account is warning me I'm reaching my max storage (unless I want to pay). I looked into Vivaldi and liked what I saw regarding privacy and customization and saw it also offered offline email. So I thought this was the perfect solution. After my emails are in Vivaldi, I can delete them from gmail, resolving my gmail storage problem.

I downloaded Vivaldi and set up the email with the gmail IMAP settings. All of my emails are now available in Vivaldi. (It actually has about 176K messages, gmail's warning shows about 40K. Maybe that is my active inbox and the rest have been archived? Not sure but it probably doesn't matter.)

I then deleted some emails in gmail and checked Vivaldi to make sure those emails were still there. But they weren't.

I'm not sure if my email is offline or not. I access Vivaldi from the desktop icon created when I downloaded the app. It looks the same as an online browser to me, but I don't know if the offline emails would look any different or not. I am receiving my emails in both gmail and Vivaldi now. I didn't see any obvious files on my hard drive for any downloaded emails, but my computer is working much slower.

Questions-

How do I check if my emails have been downloaded offline?
If I delete the messages from gmail, is it going to sync and delete the messages from Vivaldi, defeating the purpose?
Will I still be able to receive all incoming mail from gmail in Vivaldi offline if syncing is turned off?
What settings do I need to change, or what steps do I need to take to be able to use Vivaldi as my main email client (with forwards if necessary from gmail so I don't have to change my email address) and not have deletes in gmail deleted from Vivaldi?

Thank you for any assistance. I'm sorry I just can't figure this out on my own. I wasn't always this stupid :).
Thanks.

Ayespy

@crabladyanne If you are connected via IMAP, actions done at the server will be reflected locally.

I literally can't remember what taking an account offline is supposed to do. I THINK all it does is cause the account to stop checking for new mail. You can still send mail, and I think changes at the server may still be reflected locally

If you set up the account as POP3, actions at the server will not be reflected locally. Any email you have downloaded will be retained until you delete it. You should be able to set POP3 to delete downloaded emails from the server or not. GMail has instructions on line how to enable POP3 at the server for your account.

crabladyanne

@Ayespy
Thanks for your response. I changed the server settings in Vivaldi to the POP settings provided in Gmail Help.

No error messages for incoming, but this is the outgoing results:
With Outgoing connection security "StartTLS" and app password entered I get error "Error: Login for outgoing server failed. Server responded with TLS handshake failed. Reason: nwt::ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR"
With Outgoing connection security "SSL/TLS (Recommended) and using OAuth, I get the same error.
With Outgoing connection security "StartTLS" and using OAuth the error is "Error: Logon for incoming server failed. IMAP server responded with: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'length')

When I searched Google Account Help with these errors, it suggests I turn on "Less secure app access". I can't do that. Google's explanation is "To help keep your account secure, from May 30, 2022, Google no longer supports the use of third-party apps or devices which ask you to sign in to your Google Account using only your username and password."

Is it possible to use POP for incoming and IMAP for outgoing? Or is there any configuration to get past this error message?

Thanks again.

Ayespy

@crabladyanne I don't think an account can be both POP3 and IMAP.

And I'm not aware of a possibility to use POP3 with an account that was set up as IMAP. As far as I know/knew, it is necessary to set up the account originally as POP3. I have never tried POP3 with Vivaldi Mail, so I am not an authority on this.

crabladyanne

Thanks for the info. I would delete the account and start over with just a POP account, but I think the outgoing still won't work.

If I can make sure the email in Vivaldi are offline I'll try to figure how to archive, or back-up, or un-sync and then delete the messages from gmail. It might not end up as seamless as I hoped for but I'll try to make it work.

So my next step is learning how to get the messages downloaded offline.

Thanks for your help.

Ayespy

@crabladyanne Well, it's not that tough. Just install a standalone instance of Vivaldi and use that one, while going into the mail settings on this one, classifying the account as "offline," and then removing all of the information in the username and password boxes in mail settings for this one.

But FIRST, set this one to "Download Messages for offline viewing or searching," and then leave it connected to the server for a few days to ensure that all mail contents get downloaded. That takes time.

crabladyanne

@Ayespy
Thank you so very much for your patience with me.
To make sure I've got this right

In the current Mail Account settings Check only Download Messages for Offline viewing and searching. Don't check to upload sent or take account offline. It's okay to leave the other setting options as they are.
Close all Vivaldi windows.
Install a second copy of Vivaldi. Select Mail Account setting to Take Account offline. Leave all of the Mail Server settings (IMAP and POP) blank.
Do I need to do anything to start it (like check all messages) or will it run by itself?

You are so kind. Please know I appreciate all your assistance.

Ayespy

@crabladyanne Sorry, not at all.

For the time being, leave your gmail account the way it is, except activate "Download Messages for Offline viewing and searching" Do not yet select "Take account Offline."
Leave Vivaldi and the mail client OPEN and running for several days until you have verified, by spot-checking if nothing else, That the body/contents of every single one of your emails has been downloaded to your current copy of Vivaldi (in the alternative, you could do all of this with a new, standalone installation of Vivaldi that you do not intend to use for browsing all the time.)

After you are SURE all of your emails are fully downloaded - not just the list of mails but the contents of each individual mail as well, THEN you can take the account off line and remove the server settings so that it will not accidentally hook up to the server. This is now your archived copy of all your mails to date. You can reference it off line at any time.

Once that is done, use a different instance of Vivaldi with a fully functioning email client. This will allow you to keep up with your current mail flow. In that instance of Vivaldi, or using the web interface of GMail, you can now delete emails that you do not have a current need to interact with, keeping only those which you feel you may need to refer to on a daily basis, reply to, forward to others, etc.

Your disconnected version of Vivaldi is your archive. Your connected version is your working platform.

At least, if I were in your position and just wanted to archive years of mail and still make more room in my gmail account without having to buy storage space, that's what I would do.