GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 205927
support deletion of attachments
Last modified: 2013-07-24 14:39:25 UTC
The following thread occured on the evo mailing list: > Eudora (on the Mac anyway) has a feature I like where attachments are > downloaded into a designated folder. The message then just keeps a > reference to that file instead of keeping the whole attachment embedded > within the mail. The inbox then does not grow to astronomical sizes. My > Evolution inbox currently is about 80MB, largely due to attachments. I > guess most of it is my fault for not having saved attachments and > deleting the mail, but in many cases I want to keep the mail around for > future reference. > > Is something like that possible in Evolution? I guess what I am asking > for is an option to automatically save my attachmetns to disk and then > cutting it out of the email. Or does this go against all RFCs? > > Thanks, Mutt actually has a feature which I find terribly useful. On non PGP-signed messages, you can delete individual MIME parts. This allows, for example, you to save the message attachement to disk, and delete the attachment from the message. It keeps track of when the part was deleted and shows you (for example): [-- attachment#39875 [details] --] [-- Type: message/external-body, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 0.2K --] [-- This application/x-rpm attachment (size 2.2M bytes) has been deleted --] [-- on Mon, 30 Jul 2001 21:40:51 -0700 --] I use this feature in mutt quite frequently, and it would be nice if Evolution supported something similar (optimally recording the deletion date in a "mutt-compatible" way).
*** bug 207980 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** bug 212778 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** bug 213423 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
In regards to "duplicate" bug 213423, let me add that, as submitter of 13423, that when I submitted it, I did not previously know of the existence of this bug (5927), neither am I familiar with the neat features described in mutt/ mac eudora. And, in this light, I find it even more remarkable how unified my enhancement request is with that of 5927. I see it as an "omen". You've just got to move this enhancement request way high up in priority now! ;^) murf
I concur that having the ability to delete an attachment from a mail message after saving the attachment, would make evolution a much more robust product.
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------- Comment #1 from Karsten Bräckelmann 2006-04-05 13:31 UTC ------- "Deleting attachments of received emails alters the document/message, and therefore is not the sent document any longer. This violates the respecive RFC (standard). This has been discussed pretty often, and there are a couple of different reasons, why this should not be supported. Sorry. (Supporting this for the users own sent mails is not an option UI wise, and alters the saved document as well.)" Well the RFC should be revised then. This feature would be just really usefull and that's why some other emailers have it, like mutt. As the user him/herself has to manually remove the attachments, would think (s)he knows what (s)he is doing. The application (Evolution) could mark the message as mutt does, also semantically know later that the message cannot be bounced/forwarded in a normal way, like not without a warning. I thought computers and programs are made for people, and not people made for programs and RFCs. Generally ofcourse I agree RFCs are a Good Thing (tm).
(In reply to comment #14) > ------- Comment #1 from Karsten Bräckelmann 2006-04-05 13:31 UTC ------- > This feature would be just really usefull and that's why some other emailers > have it, like mutt. As the user him/herself has to manually remove the For what it's worth - "even" Firefox supports attachment deletion.
(In reply to comment #15) > (In reply to comment #14) > > ------- Comment #1 from Karsten Bräckelmann 2006-04-05 13:31 UTC ------- > > This feature would be just really usefull and that's why some other emailers > > have it, like mutt. As the user him/herself has to manually remove the > > For what it's worth - "even" Firefox supports attachment deletion. > s/Firefox/Thunderbird/
*** Bug 364440 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
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Oddly, the developers have no problem removing attachments from replies, even though this also "alters the message". This looks like a good project for a plugin, similar to add-on products that do this for Exchange, Lotus Notes, etc. Requirements would be: - adds "Delete Attachment" button to Attachment Context Menu - replaces long attachment with short message "Attachment Deleted" - doesn't break message threading, replies, etc. - updates indices so that space can be reclaimed. Simplest way might be to delete the old message and add the new shorter one.
it has to be implemented as a "delete attachment", "re-append message", "delete original message" sequence because none of the mail-stores support modifying messages in-line. (I suppose you could hack it with Maildir but I'd suggest against it)
Thanks Jeffrey, I'm looking at the plugin developer guide and would appreciate any suggestions. Also, does anyone feel strongly about being able to delete inline content? Ie. - any sections of a message that has a handler which displays it inline. These are treated differently then attachments which are sections having unknown (or at least undisplayable) content.
*** Bug 436969 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
the ubuntu bug tracker has a similar request on https://bugs.launchpad.net/evolution/+bug/127026
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Disappointing to see this set to WONTFIX, which RFC is the problem here? Maybe the the RFC should be updated if so many other clients allow this.
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Reopening at user's request. I'd like to at least re-examine this issue for myself.
I was among those requesting the reopening. I think that this is a quite crucial feature which is supported by a couple of mailing programs and I'd welcome if Evolution would support it, too. For me, the most urgent need for this is with IMAP mailboxes. Those usually have far stricter size constraints as a local hard drive. And it is the idea of IMAP to have one central place for your mail that you can access from various places. So when receiving a message with a huge attachment in my IMAP inbox, I currently have to save the attachment locally and then delete the whole message to prevent my inbox from reaching the quota constraints. But I then loose the information that I received this particular message from my inbox. Instead, I'd want to just save the attachment locally and delete it from the message, leaving a notices that there was an attachment with name xy. I then can keep all my messages in place, and still save space.
Hello, this feature is requested by many people. I started writing a Evolution feature proposal and made a mockup of it: http://www.neeneenee.de/evo/#3
this guy has written a plugin and packaged for debian. http://people.debian.org.tw/~chihchun/2008/05/23/remove-attachments-evolution-plugin-002/ I tested it in Ubuntu Hardy, and works nicely. Maybe Evolution developers could pick it up, and package it into vanilla evolution, maybe leaving it disabled by default if they feel that enabling it is tainting their standard-compliance. cheers
Wow, look at all the duplicate bug requests. (Doesn't that say *anything*?) It would be very nice should this get implemented/included in the vanilla evolution. Have been very much wanting it as well... thanks
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Hi, I have followed/commented on several threads about the topic on Ubuntu forum (I am on Ubuntu Linux), Launchpad and bugzilla, and on the Rex Tsai's page [1](he is the author of a plug-in, to compile on Ubuntu) As expressed by Ben Morgan (comment 33#) I hope to see the feature implemented in the vanilla evolution. thanks [1] http://people.debian.org.tw/~chihchun/2008/05/23/remove-attachments-evolution-plugin-002/comment-page-1/#comment-208190
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Wow! Since 2001, and not solved yet!!!
I guess everyone switched to Thunderbird and never came back.
Hi, I have posted a update in #534453 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=534453
*** Bug 631884 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
It'll be very good if code in #534453 can be implemented in evo.
I did not finger out how to implement it as core function. But I think it's quite easy to have it as a plugin in evolution/plugins/remove-attachments, if you want I can submit a patch based on 2.6.32.
> evolution/plugins/remove-attachments, if you want I can submit a patch based on > 2.6.32. I meant Ev 2.30. :p
I mean if at least it can be included in default plugins so it can be available to users across different ditros.
+1 Link to package for Ubuntu: https://launchpad.net/~chihchun/+archive/ppa/+packages Comment 27 describes how to rebuild: http://people.debian.org.tw/~chihchun/2008/05/23/remove-attachments-evolution-plugin-002/ As a general perspective, there are not a lot of usability enhancements required for Evolution to keep up with modern expectations (as good as Outlook and Thunderbird). I count four key ones: 1. This one 2. The requirement to be able to change font on sent emails (several bugs record this one), 3. Expansion of the address pane when adding users to meetings so you can see the whole address instead of having to widen the window manually every time 4. Ability to create a new email with <ctrl>-n from an existing received email being read (for some reason requires the non-intuitive and non-standard <ctrl>-shift-m) and from a new email in progress (which can't be done at all) As an observation based purely on my own experience, there is switching to Thunderbird / Lightening happening because some think non-prioritization of features like these to indicate that Evolution is a dead application, which of course is not true. I think Evo beats the pants of both Outlook and Thunderbird/Lightening in most areas, which is why I've made these comments to try and help focus some priority, but agree these four features are quite important to many users, and the lack of them leaves a disproportionately negative impression. f
Thanks Milan Crha, my plugin has been integrated into Evolution. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=534453 This issue can be closed. :-)
Closing as fixed.