GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 721790
support delete from all gmail folders
Last modified: 2015-01-09 23:12:31 UTC
No matter if it's a gmail account instead of a standard IMAP account, I really really really want a Delete button. Be it for adhering to the Inbox Zero methodology, for keeping the account lightweight and clean, or for privacy reasons, "Archive" does not always cut it. (even GMail's official UI has a delete button)
The crux of the issue here is that it's not trivial to support delete with gmail's IMAP implementation. When we implement it (by adding the FolderSupport.Remove interface to the gmail-specific folder class), the delete button will appear as it does for other account types: trash button displayed where supported until you hit the shift key, at which point it switches to delete. I've updated the title to reflect the work that needs to be done. I also thought there was an existing ticket for this, but I couldn't find it when I just searched.
Hmm, doesn't it depend on how you set gmail's settings? (to make things uber confusing, it has two "sets" of options governing the imap behavior) As far as docs go, there's https://support.google.com/mail/answer/77657?hl=en But there is also https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78755?hl=en The cleanest way I found with Evolution (since version 3.8) is that you can configure which folder to be used as trash, so you can tell it to use GMail/Trash, and when you "delete" a message evo will actually move it to that folder (I think), causing gmail to understand that it really needs to be trashed/removed from all labels. I may be wrong (or confused) in my interpretation, but that's roughly how it seems to work from an Evolution user's point of view. Anyhow, good to know that "really delete" is still on the table for gmail accounts :)
It does depend on the Gmail settings, which is troubling because there's no way via IMAP to detect that. We may need to use some other mechanism (if available) to detect the setting. Without knowing the setting, Geary can still guarantee a message is deleted via a two-step process: (a) move the message to Trash, then (b) delete the message in Trash. The method you're describing for Evolution is pretty much how Geary in master works today: you can Archive or Trash a message.
*Trashing* messages from any gmail folder just landed in master. I thought you were referring to *deleting* messages outright, skipping the trash. That's what's not trivial. If all you need is trashing, does the latest code in master not work for you?
I did mean "trashing" rather than deleting skipping the trash (though it means geary needs a way to empty the trash, ideally periodically such as every month or so). I haven't tested master, just tried the stable release available in Fedora ;)
With Gmail (and most other web mail services, like Outlook.com), Geary doesn't need to empty the Trash, that's done by the server. If the user wants to manually do it, we've ticketed bug #714809. I'd like to leave this ticket open, as I do think Geary should offer a Delete button for Gmail users.
Pushed to master, commit 0ef211