Archiving in Gmail is strange

[jfeiablc]

Hi, I have two related questions.

Archiving in Gmail

When I archive an email from the Inbox, I get this message.

And then when I click Cancel, the email disappears in Vivaldi (because the filter is set to hide Archived messages), but not in Gmail. I don't click "create archive" because I'd prefer this just behave the way Gmail behaves. Anybody know how to get it to actually remove the Inbox label?

The INBOX.Archive thing

I notice this INBOX.Archive tag/label/whatever in the top corner of messages archived in Vivaldi, but I can't figure out where it stores this information:

Where does that go? Is it added to the raw message header? I don't see it there.

Long story short, I hate not knowing what's actually happening here, and it'd be awesome if someone could explain how this all works. Thanks!

[Hadden89]

@jfeiablc said in Archiving in Gmail is strange:

I'd prefer this just behave the way Gmail behaves

That's because gmail has a not standard way to handle archived mails.

I'm pretty sure other clients do the same without user interaction but Vivaldi warns you that need to create the folder to archive which is a mere label for gmail:

About this...

It should mean moved from sent folder to archive folder.

[WildEnte]

@jfeiablc INBOX.Archive is an actual folder that is now a folder on your GMail server.

GMail, sadly the biggest of them all, decided to go against established IMAP standards and do their own thing. They use folders in the backend to simulate labels, and every email client in the world has to try to figure out exactly how it works. Go on any email client forum (I've checked Thunderbird and emClient) and you'll find people wondering.

So while the IMAP standard says that an email that is archived gets put into an \Archive folder (and if it doesn't exist it is to be created, which is what Vivaldi did), GMail considers emails as archived when they are in the All Mail folder AND "not in the Inbox folder". Sounds quirky? -> the thunderbird team agrees: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-and-gmail#w_gmails-particularities

There are bug reports about Vivaldi not being entirely compatible to how GMail does it, e.g. (the reopened because not entirely fixed report) VB-89103. They should be fixed, because GMail is the de facto standard.

@jfeiablc said in Archiving in Gmail is strange:

Long story short, I hate not knowing what's actually happening here, and it'd be awesome if someone could explain how this all works.

As to the confusion what a label or a folder is:
Labels or tags give additional information to an email. You may label an email as "important" or as "shopping", and then that information is just added to the email's metadata on the server and in the mail client. GMail also works with labels BUT only in the frontend. When you connect an email program via IMAP, it turns out that all those pretty labels are in fact separate IMAP folders, and GMail creates a copy in every IMAP folder.

@Hadden89 it takes me way too long to write answers, apparently, in particular when I get interrupted ...

EDIT: @jane-n sorry for pinging you - I'm not sure who is responsible for writing the help articles. Looking at the thunderbird knowledge base article (linked above) I think a similar explanation might get us a long way with the quirks of GMail. Well apart from ironing out the remaining minor incompatibilities like trying to create an archive folder on GMail in the first place...

[jane.n]

@WildEnte Thanks for the ping, I'll look into it.

[jfeiablc]

@WildEnte said:

INBOX.Archive is an actual folder that is now a folder on your GMail server.

AH! I wonder how that happened. I must have accidentally clicked Create at one point, even though I swear I always clicked Cancel. Okay, that's good to know.

But on this topic, what are Labels in Vivaldi on a normal IMAP server? Are they keywords in the IMAP world?

If you add a Label in Vivaldi, how does it get stored on the server?

[Hadden89]

@jfeiablc said in Archiving in Gmail is strange:

If you add a Label in Vivaldi, how does it get stored on the server?

It depends. Vivaldi Labels are technically standard IMAP Labels.
If the web service support labels they will go on the server too otherwise they will just act as a virtual folder only in vivaldi client.