"Archive" emails

deathau

I have accounts in Gmail and Outlook.com and in both cases I have the same workflow, which involves "archiving" messages to get them out of the Inbox. There is still stuff that hangs around in my inbox as reminders of things that need to be done or responded to.

Now, I could replace this workflow using the unseen and unread flow that Vivaldi is pushing me towards (and I actually kinda like the sound of), but...

I currently have thousands of "unread" (and therefore according to Vivaldi "unseen") messages in my archive.
I also still have the "reminders" I sitting in my Inbox that are "read".
This workflow breaks down when I'm on my phone (which has no idea what Vivaldi has "seen").

I just want a simple "archive" button that removes messages from the Inbox without deleting them.

WildEnte

I see you have posted the same in https://forum.vivaldi.net/post/491862 so I suggest to close this thread here and continue the discussion there

deathau

@wildente That was in response to an existing support request, and upon investigating the feature requests, I noticed none was made regarding this functionality, so I thought it made sense to highlight it as its own feature request.

pauloaguia

@deathau I actually posted something along these lines about half an year ago: https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/53497/option-to-archive-email-on-server-when-marking-as-read

cs0

Yes please, I totally agree! The way it is now Vivaldi just does not work well if other clients are also used to manage mail, eg on mobile.

Zargron

Via "webmail" interface, under [Settings | Preferences | Special Folders] i've set my "archive" folder and enabled divide by "year". Obviously i then use the available [Archive] button to do it's magic.

However, i would very much like to have an [Archive] button available within the email client built into the browser. I also boldly submit that there be thousands like me who would very much enjoy such an enhancement.

Thank you for your kind attention.

UnattributedCC

Soo... I'm maybe a little different in how I handle my emails, but this is coming from using Thunderbird for quite some time.

I have selected the folder to keep my archives in by using the Thunderbird option to allow me to select an IMAP folder. I think add the option to Archive by Year, which creates sub-folders in the Archive folder on my IMAP server.

I don't see how I can replicate this behavior using the Vivaldi Mail application. Is there something that I am overlooking?

George

Zargron

In case anyone interested, regards email archiving...

I noticed the welcome addition of a "Move to Archive" button in the tool bar (ver 5.3.2679). Although... it seems to disappear/re-appear a bit. When i select "Trash" or "Sent" folder, it disappears. When i select "Inbox" it re-appears. When i <right-click> in "Trash" there is a [Move Message to Archive] option. So, go figure. Anyhow, i tentatively clicked the button, my email disappeared and i couldn't find it for a while.

Eventually i logged into webmail and found it in an "Archive" folder. I restarted Vivaldi but didn't get that folder to appear in the browser email interface. And even more worrying, it does not appear in Thunderbird. Oh, and another interesting thing i just remembered, in the webmail interface, the "Archive" folder does not appear in my "Manage Folders" list. I also discovered the "Add archive folder if missing" setting which did not help my cause. (Is that acknowledgement of there being a problem?) Lord knows what i've done to cause this. But in the meantime...

I have been archiving emails for ages into basically a YYYY/Trash & YYYY/Sent folder structure. In Thunderbird we have the luxury of configuring a relatively smooth archive process. Once in a while i open a search folder that automatically returns sent/trash emails which are over a year old, then i click the [Archive] button. I have got this working with @vivaldi.net within Thunderbird after a couple hiccups.

I have had my Vivaldi email account loaded into Thunderbird for a while. When i attempted to archive my @vivaldi.net account in Thunderbird it did not create the full folder hierarchy. It created "Archives" and a sub-folder for "YYYY", but failed to create the relevant sub-folder. In other words, it did not create the "Trash" sub-sub-folder. I got an error message: "A folder with that name exists. Please enter a different name."

BTW: i tried to resolve through the browser email interface to no avail. I could not figure out how to create an email folder. So, although off-topic, if someone could please drop a comment as to how you do that it would be much appreciated. Anyway, the following works for me whilst they sort out the archive facility...

Log into webmail interface for your Vivaldi account.

Go into [Settings] then [Folders]
Create a folder called "Archives" with parent folder blank.
- Note the plural for a couple of reasons:
  - to co-operate with default behaviour in Thunderbird
  - to avoid collision with Vivaldi "Archive" naming convention whilst they resolve things
  - i can always move my archived emails over once they get it suitably refined
Go into [Settings] then [Preferences / Special Folders]
Select "Archives" then set "Divide archive by = Year and the original folder"
- Hopefully during Vivaldi development they will enhance to respect these settings.
- In other words, whether i archive in webmail or browser client, it should respect those settings.
Back in [Settings] then [Folders], i created some annual folders and sub-folders
- eg. Archives/2020/Trash & Archives/2020/Sent
- I also created folder hierarchy for 2021 & 2022

In Thunderbird (assuming you know your way around)

In [Account Settings / Copies & Folders], enable message archives into "Archives" folder
Click [Archive Options] and set yearly archive and keep existing folder structure.

Testing

Thunderbird: archive selected emails from Trash and Sent, (appeared to move correctly)
Webmail Interface: emails archived by TB showing properly, test archive process within webmail, working OK.
Browser Email Client: can't test archiving, but emails deposited as expected.

So for the time being, i will use archive facility with Thunderbird or webmail interface. Hopefully the team get things working to my liking in the browser interface in future. Not urgent at all from my perspective. Perhaps some of these issues are unique to my environment.

Webmail Interface

Should "Archive" folder be available in "Manage Folders" list?

Browser Email Interface

I cannot access "Archive" folder
Archive facility should respect settings in webmail interface.
Whether it respects those settings or stores settings elsewhere, the archive facility should allow for deposting an archived email into an orginal name sub-folder, within it's annual folder.
Filtering could be enhanced to handle simple things like "give me all emails that are over 365 days old that are in the Trash folder". Having retrieved that list, i would like to archive them as prescribed above.

Thanks for reading.

LinLee

@Zargron It might be due to 2 year app difference, but I find myself unable to find any of those setting you've mentioned in the Vivaldi Mail interface.
I'm currently trying to get my Archive folder that I've created to work. I don't want the custom Vivaldi's one as it creates that ugly [IMAP]/Archive text as its name. When I manually create Archive folder, vivaldi just doesn't recognise it.
Does anyone know how to get those Archive folders to work? Is it even possible to have it without the [IMAP] part in its name?

WildEnte

@LinLee just calling a folder "Archive" is not enough. It needs to be designated as the archive folder in order to work. You should be able to do that in the web interface of your IMAP server. This is how it looks like in Vivaldi's webmail service:

LinLee

@WildEnte That's interesting. When I hooked up my Gmail account, which had the "Archive" option in Gmail's web interface I thought It'd use it. However, when I tried archiving an email through Vivaldi Mail I got a notification saying that It had created such a folder.

If you're right I should review my IMAP servers settings to avoid having two folders with the same purpose.
I just wish Vivaldi's one wouldn't have such an "ugly" name when viewing it on other mail apps like Gmail.

WildEnte

Ah Gmail. Well I don't know about that naming issue, maybe it's possible to rename the folder in Gmail without changing the designation as archive?

Note that GMail has a very quirky implementation of IMAP which every client has to find workarounds for (GMail abuses folders as labels). The archiving
function used to be incompatible to Gmail, a year ago most of the problem was fixed but some issues remained. See
https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/74974/archived-still-showing-even-though-archive-button-not-selected/15?_=1710902001215