Mail folders Vs. labels

S_Paternotte

Since outlook.com killed synchronised accounts last february I am on the lookout for a different approach to managing multiple e-mail accounts, preferably within one (online) environment. I'm still not certain if this actually is a pipedream.

These days I'm experimenting with the Vivaldi Mail client which appears not friendly with (huge) mail folder structures. Yes, I'm old school. I'm used to organising stuff in folders.

Moving messages to a folder within the large structure is a hell of a task. A little search field would be quite needy here.
Folders are not sorted aplhabetically
The existing IMAP folders are presented in a peculiar manner with a period "." as a delimiter for subfolders

I have read on this forum that labels are the preferred way to go.
Okay, I'm open to learning something new and I am open to change for a brave new world, though be it reluctantly. So, I have a couple of questions:

What's the best way to migrate all my mails in folders to an organisation based upon labels? And should I try to mimic my original folder structure with dashes, e.g. "Companies - Canon" or just go for "Canon"?
Any road, my large folder structure is going to lead to a large number of labels. Will Vivaldi have an issue with large numbers of labels? BTW, is it possible to assign multiple labels to messages, e.g. "Companies" + "Canon"?
Once I've assigned labels to messages within Vivaldi Mail, will they also show up in other environments like my RoundCube webmail? I.o.w. are labels standard IMAP features? Are labels in any way compatible or exportable?

I would be very interested to learn from the Vivaldi Mail experts.

WildEnte

@s_paternotte as you noticed, if your workflow requires you to have folders, Vivaldi mail may not be the best choice for you. It's also still a new client, so regardless of whether you are looking for folders or labels, things can (and I hope will) be improved with time.
Vivaldi can still create folders (not sure if this is rolled out to the stable channel yet, the snapshots do) which will work across platforms.

Labels have the disadvantage that they are not standardized to a degree that they will work with all sorts of setups. Vivaldi now shares 5 standard labels with Thunderbird so that those 5 labels will be in tune between those clients. Anything else is just for Vivaldi.

To your questions:

You may feel more at home organizing your labels as you did your folders, e.g. by choosing label names companies_canon or comp_canon. I am never a friend of having spaces in labels, maybe that's old school.
Vivaldi will not have an issue with a large number of labels. All that a label does is that the mail's metadata will get a string $labelvivX (with X being some number) attached to it.
The core benefit of labels over folders is that you can assign multiple labels to one email. With folders, if you wanted to have an email in one folder and another one, you would need a copy. With labels, you just assign several of them, and the email will show up under any of these labels. Later you can also create custom filters where you search for emails carrying some labels and NOT carrying other labels
see above, labels are not standardized

I don't know about your need for organization, but my personal opinion about folders and labels in a nutshell is this: if you have some logic that allows you to know what label to assign to an email or what folder to move it to (in particular if you are able to automate moving emails to folders with rules), then the very same logic can also be used to find that very same email later based on search criteria: keywords, date frame, contact etc. ... emails are FULL of data that can be searched.

Use search when you need to find an email instead of organizing emails instead of guessing what organizational structure may be useful and sorting every email that comes in. I make do without folders and use very few labels.

S_Paternotte

Thank you for your elaborate answer, @WildEnte

WildEnte

@s_paternotte actually I think that other than the first 5 standard labels created in Thunderbird will also be synced with Vivaldi mail, but since Vivaldi is the new kid on the block, labels created in Vivaldi will not be shown in other clients. A bit of a correction of what I said above

S_Paternotte

So, if I understand correctly, labels are promoted by many as the (new/better) way of organising large amounts of email messages.
But labels are non-standard, mail client specific and largely non-transferrable.
Folders, on the other hand are well supported by imap server standards.

It's taking a bit of a plunge, assigning labels to all my messages and getting rid of the IMAP folder structure, because that works better in Vivaldi Mail.

I will loose all organisation in my Roundcube webmail view on the mail server, because all messages will be together in the folders IN and SENT. And those labels in Vivaldi Mail I will loose when moving on to another mail client if I find that Vivaldi Mail is not my cuppa tea after all.

I reccon that Vivaldi Mail, for its own justification, requires something of a bidirectional label-imap folder converter, AND it needs to improve its support for industry standard imap folders with proper sorting and easy moving of messages.

S_Paternotte

Hm, I just thought of another blocking issue. Vivaldi Mail only exists on the pc/laptop where I installed it. It's not on my phone and it's not accessible online (fall back scenario).
So, migrating my folders to labels will do me no good on my phone either. Or can we expect Vivaldi Mail on Mobile soon?

Forget about the label-folder converter I mentioned before. Vivaldi Mail really needs to improve its support for industry standard imap folders.

WildEnte

I agree that Vivaldi should support a folder based workflow, and it does (you can create folders and move messages there, also between accounts), it's just not the core principle of the client. Labels are closer to the core principle, as is find as you type search and great filters. For those that used it, Opera M2 which had the same concept (in a time when mail on mobile devices was largely irrelevant outside the world of blackberry) was the perfect client.

I hope Vivaldi mail will come to mobile, syncing the database file (rather than all emails). Let's see.

derDay

@s_paternotte
beside your specific questions and requirements I would never recommend vivaldi M3 for professional use. It's quite beta status and IMO you notice it in many little things which will you never want to encounter in a business case (but also with your private mails).
I use M3 only for less important mail accounts, which only use IMAP (without any folders). So a switch is (sadly) in a long time planned

but beside this I'm a huge fan of searched-based mail-db over folder-based mail db

Ayespy

@derday And yet, Vivaldi M3 has been my business/professional email client for at least a couple of years now, but then I am not a folder/label fiend. I rely entirely on search. My email is, in fact, my office. It's my sole form of contacting, receiving orders, delivering product to, and billing my clients. So it's not like I rely on it or anything...

WildEnte

@derday I concur with @Ayespy, M3 (like M2 before) is very much usable for professional use.

The fallacy is that "professional emailing" requires some sort of sophisticated organization, be it with Folders or Labels or whatnot. Research has shown that foldering is less efficient and no more successful than searching for emails - which is totally in line with my own observations in (way) too many years of emailing.

Research paper:
http://www.mytimemanagement.com/support-files/wasting_time_organizing_email.pdf

Own thoughts:
https://wildente.vivaldi.net/e-mail-folders-and-whats-wrong-with-them/

derDay

@ayespy
I'm know, that have access to M3 more longer than the "normal" vivaldians and I'm impressed, that you use it since years. do you have mainly POP or IMAP accounts? I think with IMAP it's way more easier to switch between different mailclients than with POP accounts

@WildEnte
I wrote it per message to you but I repeat it here too, that I'm a huge fan of working with filters and a fast search. I find emails in my private mail-db way more faster than in my outlook folder business mails
I'm absolutely convinced that folders are much more impractical

S_Paternotte

Thanks for all the input, folks. Much appreciated.

Further question:

Are labels stored in the Vivaldi Mail database only or are they actually included in the metadata of the message at the IMAP server?

I have a hunch that it's the former, because after I labeled a particular incoming message, I was not able to find anything "Vivaldi" in its source.
Another li'l experiment wher I used Thunderbird to add a label to that same message also turned out negative in its source.

So, are labels typically stored in the mail client's database only?

S_Paternotte

Hmmm, there's more to it, because the label "Later" that I added in Thunderbird just showed up in Vinaldi Mail as well. Yet, I was not able to discover it in the message source. How fascinating!
So, maybe the message source at the server is updated with the Vivaldi and Thunderbird labels. It's just not in human legible format.

Any expert input is welcome.

WildEnte

@s_paternotte I'm not an expert, but as far as I know labels (which is not a standardized term in IMAP) are message state indicators which can be freely defined by email clients. The RFC speaks of Flags (among them Unread, Deleted etc.) which are standardized, and keywords, which can be defined by the mail client. These flags are not added to the message source but are metadata connected to the ID of the message.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Message_Access_Protocol#Message_state_information

Chapter 2.3.2 of the RFC3501 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/pdfrfc/rfc3501.txt.pdf

Some nicely made explanation https://www.atmail.com/blog/imap-commands/