Archived still showing even though archive button not selected

WildEnte

@shoham aaah now I got you. I can confirm, Vivaldi's archiving function is not compatible with GMail yet. I believe this is because GMail is not following the IMAP standards but applies a GMail specific label to archive emails. The Vivaldi view toggle button works with emails marked as archived in the GMail web interface, but it doesn't work on the ones marked as Archived within Vivaldi. The other way around, clicking the "move to archive" button in Vivaldi does move the email to the IMAP Archive folder created through Vivaldi, but GMail just treats these as some email in a custom folder.

Apart from the fact that archiving emails is entirely pointless, it should still work, so I have created a bug report:

VB-89103: Vivaldi Archive function incompatible with GMail

Steps to reproduce:
Also see forum discussion https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/74974/archived-still-showing-even-though-archive-button-not-selected

Have a GMail account. In the GMail web interface, select an email (Let's call it 'G_Archived') and click the GMail "archive button"
set up the account in Vivaldi Mail
Search for the email G_Archived, and note how the Archive View Toggle button shows/hides G_Archived from the results. (Spoiler: while the emails carry the archive icon nothing happens when clicking the toggle. The emails are always shown)
In Vivaldi, click the account name in "all accounts", select "Create Folder" and call that folder "Archive"
(-> effect: Vivaldi will create the folder and gives it the Archive icon, and the "move to archive" button becomes clickable for emails of this GMail account in Vivaldi, and the GMail web interface will show a "IMAP/Archive" folder)
Select an email (Let's call it 'V_Archived') from the GMail account and choose "move to archive"
Search for the email V_Archived, and note how the Archive View Toggle button shows/hides V_Archived from the results. (Spoiler: this works as intended)
Go to the GMail web interface and find V_Archived still in your Inbox. It will also show in "All Mail" with the indicator "IMAP/Archive", as well as under the "IMAP/Archive" folder... which GMail calls a label.

Address (URL) of faulty page:
https://mail.google.com/

Expected behaviour:
Vivaldi's Archiving function to be compatible with GMail, and given that GMail implements IMAP folders as Labels, Vivaldi might also treat them as Labels rather than as custom IMAP folders. (just a suggestion)

Actual behaviour:
The Vivaldi Archive Function is incompatible with GMail:

mails archived within GMail Web interface do not show/hide when using the Vivaldi Archive View toggle button
GMail treats the Vivaldi Archive IMAP folder like any other IMAP folder which just happens to be called Archive
GMail does not treat emails archived within Vivaldi as archived

Shoham

@wildente
I removed the 'share with IMAP' flag on the 'All Mail' label in Gmail settings and thus problem solved for now.

michaellenaghan

@WildEnte In Gmail I think archiving just removes all labels. And the All Mail view shows you all mail, regardless of whether or not it has a label. (For example, All Mail includes Inbox mail too.)

The way "archiving" works in Gmail makes sense to me; it allows me to focus on the relatively few messages that are still in my Inbox, whether or not they've been read.

My wife, by contrast, never archives (and rarely deletes); she doesn't mind having a massive Inbox. She uses a different process to keep track of messages she's read but hasn't dealt with yet.

Probably no real news in any of that, but possibly helpful to others.

WildEnte

@michaellenaghan in other words, Gmail has a quirky implementation of imap and your wife understands that there is no difference between read emails in her inbox and an archive

PercyBottle

@michaellenaghan said in Archived still showing even though archive button not selected:

And the All Mail view shows you all mail, regardless of whether or not it has a label.

This is correct. Whereas imap generally refers to folders, gmail has no concept of folders; just labels.

In Gmail I think archiving just removes all labels.

Actually, archiving just removes the "Inbox" label. And therefore, in gmail, such an email no longer shows up in the inbox. All other labels should remain unaltered.

Ideally, Vivaldi mail should do the same thing when operating on a gmail account. Clicking the "Archive" button should just remove the "Inbox" label, rather than trying to move the mail to a folder called "Archive".

WildEnte

@PercyBottle said in Archived still showing even though archive button not selected:

Whereas imap generally refers to folders, gmail has no concept of folders; just labels

It's the other way around: "Gmail treats labels as folders for the purposes of IMAP. "
(from https://developers.google.com/gmail/imap/imap-extensions)

WildEnte

@WildEnte said in Archived still showing even though archive button not selected:

VB-89103: Vivaldi Archive function incompatible with GMail

It seems to me that the archive function in Vivaldi is now a little more compatible with GMail.

TL;DR:

Vivaldi now treats Mails archived in the GMail Web interface as archived.
Vivaldi requires creation of a dedicated Archive folder to be able to archive an email for GMail. GMail pretty much ignores the standard Archive Flag and treats the email as labeled
Seems that GMail defines 'archived' as "not in the IMAP Inbox" folder.

Still broken: the archive button in Vivaldi is greyed out for GMail until a dedicated folder is created from within Vivaldi Mail (Step 4)

Changes to the original bug report above:

Step 3: an email marked as archived in GMail's web interface is now correctly shown/hidden in Vivaldi when changing the state of the 'archived' view toggle button. This was not the case before.
Step 5: the "move to Archive" button no longer exists in GMail for an email sent to the archive in Vivaldi. Maybe there was a change on Google's side...
--> After removing the IMAP/Archive "label" from the email within the GMail web interface (which means that GMail moves the email from the IMAP folder "Archive" into the IMAP folder "All Mail". Vivaldi still treats this email as archived.
--> In the GMail web interface, giving an email the "label" Imap/Archived will move it into the corresponding folder, and Vivaldi will start to treat it like an archived email. GMail however just treats it as a labeled email that is also in Inbox. Still in the GMail web interface, it's now possible to click the 'archive' button which just removes the email from the Inbox folder (nothing changes for Vivaldi, it treated the email as archived once GMail put it into the custom Archive folder). GMail doesn't care if it's also in some Archive folder, for GMail it seems the criteria 'archived/not archived' solely depends on whether an email is in Inbox or not.

zhurinn

Having recently tried out Vivaldi Mail, I'm enjoying its speed and unique features. Since the Mail Help article on archiving mentions, "[s]ome email service providers, such as Gmail and Microsoft, allow archiving messages as a way to keep your inbox clean and organized," I incorrectly expected it to work as-is. It's very close and I found this thread while trying to find out how to get the Archive button to work.

Here's a summary of the use cases, expected behaviors, and observed behaviors when archiving email with a Gmail server.

New email arrives

Expected: Gmail applies "Inbox" label. In Gmail, email appears in Inbox and All Mail folders. In Vivaldi Mail, email appears in Inbox, Unread, Received and [Gmail]/All Mail folders.

Observed: Working as expected.

Archive email in Inbox via Gmail web client

Expected: Gmail removes "Inbox" label. In Gmail, email appears in All Mail folder and no longer appears in Inbox. In Vivaldi Mail, email appears in Archive and [Gmail]/All Mail folders and no longer appears in Inbox. Email only appears in Unread and Received folders if Archived filter is enabled.

Observed: Working as expected.

Archive email via Vivaldi Mail

Expected: Vivaldi Mail removes email from Inbox. In Gmail, email appears in All Mail folder and it no longer appears in Inbox. In Vivaldi Mail, email appears in Archive and [Gmail]/All Mail folders and it no longer appears in Inbox. Email only appears in Unread and Received if Archived filter is enabled.

Observed: Vivaldi Mail's Archive button is disabled.

Notes: For Gmail archiving, from an IMAP perspective, email is considered to be in the Inbox when it's in the Inbox and [Gmail]/All Mail folders. Email is considered to be archived when it's not in the Inbox folder but it still exists in [Gmail]/All Mail (and potentially other folders if other Gmail labels were applied).

Thus, there's no need to create an additional Archive folder on the Gmail server. Vivaldi Mail's archive function just needs to remove the email from the Inbox.

View archived emails in Archive folder in Vivaldi Mail

Expected: Only lists archived emails (those that exist in [Gmail]/All Mail and do not exist in Inbox).

Observed: Working as expected.

zhurinn

I tried to see if I could work around the disabled Archive button by removing an email only from the Inbox folder. Alas, it doesn't seem there is a way via Vivaldi Mail. Deleting removes the email from everywhere. Moving the email from Inbox to [Gmail]/All Mail doesn't work because Vivaldi won't let you move it to a folder where it already exists.

I really like how Vivaldi Mail de-duplicates multiple instances of an email, but it seems to lack functionality to manage those associations (add/remove mappings to control where an email appears).

mib2berlin

@zhurinn
Hi, I cant see a archived mail in Inbox, I can see the counter if it is not disabled in the mail settings.

zhurinn

@mib2berlin That is correct. Archived email does not appear in the Inbox folder. It can appear in Unread or Received if the Archived filter is enabled.

mib2berlin

@zhurinn
Yes, this is the expected behave, you have to disable it.
Do I understand the "issue" correctly or is there no "issue"?

zhurinn

@mib2berlin The issue is that archiving an email in the Inbox using Vivaldi Mail doesn't work on Gmail servers. See use case #3 in my post https://forum.vivaldi.net/post/727235

I put the information in this thread because of the post from @WildEnte at https://forum.vivaldi.net/post/685627

lumbroso

I just discovered Vivaldi, and it's so awesome I considered finally using a native mail client, Vivaldi Mail, for email.

It is so weird that the "Archive" functionality cannot be customized. It's not a bug, it's just, as people have mentioned, Gmail works by putting an "Inbox" label to incoming emails, and when it is removed, the email is considered "Archived".

This is a simple semantic. Who cares whether it only works for Gmail? Gmail owns 75.78% of the market share in the U.S. and 22% of the market share worldwide. I will also note that Vivaldi Mail supports Google's OAuth already, so it acknowledges the importance of a smooth experience for this dominant player.

Can't believe this has been open for several years, as the solution is so simple! Somewhere, there's an if block to put:

If (server == imap.gmail.com) then remove Inbox as a label else add to Archived folder

zhurinn

@lumbroso Agreed. All we can do is report a problem. We can't make them fix it. I used Betterbird before and will continue to do so, since this bug is a showstopper for me. If this ever gets fixed or I stop using Gmail, then I may give Vivaldi Mail another try.

goodbyevivaldi

You know, this isn't even THAT big of a deal, but what it represents is a big deal. I've worked in software for 25 years and am quite familiar with this kind of "technically correct is the best kind of correct" approach to usability-- I'm just astonished to see it in a supposedly professionally managed project. This attitude is the precise reason that open-source alternatives will forever be alternatives despite being free, privacy-respecting, and often having technically superior underpinnings. You can embrace open standards while still respecting the fact that your users don't-- and should be required to-- eschew normal useful things that don't meet your standards for technical purity. Uninstall.

WildEnte

@goodbyevivaldi noone from the Vivaldi team has commented in this thread. I assume you refer at least in part to comments that I have made calling Gmail's implementation quirky. Note that I am just a user and volunteer tester and don't speak in any way for the Vivaldi team.

The original problem report is over two years old and many issues with archiving and also the specifics of GMail have been resolved, although there are still some left.

When remarking that issues are due to Gmail's nonstandard implementation of IMAP, from where I stand it's not about "technically correct is the best kind of correct" but mostly that undocumented nonstandard behavior of Gmail is causing a massive uphill battle for developers of email software, which is frustrating for volunteer supporters like myself because people naturally assume that Vivaldi is just buggy. You might say it is when Gmail is the de facto standard, but I feel it's ok to point out where the problem originates. There's a reason the Thunderbird support pages have a section dedicated to
"GMail particularities"

Please consider reporting specific issues of Vivaldi with Gmail. The better the remaining issues are described, the more likely a fix will make it to future releases.

mib2berlin

@WildEnte
Hi, I wanted to reply but someone with that username probably won't give any feedback.

Cheers, mib

smolakmariusz

I hope this problem is eliminated, I can't use Vivaldi Mail without it.