Moving to archive marks messages as read

[neufeind]

Checklist

• [x] I have used the search function to see if someone else has already submitted the same bug report.
• [x] I will describe the problem with as much detail as possible.

App

Thunderbird for Android

App version

9.0b3

Where did you get the app from?

Google Play

Android version

14

Device model

No response

Steps to reproduce

When moving messages to the archive-folder the messages are now (since some time recently) marked as read. This was not the case before and partly broke my working with messages (especially when on the road and moving "not that much important" messages to archive to read later on the desktop). Could this either be "fixed" again or if this was intentional (?) a setting be added to decide whether to mark messages read when moving them? Other systems don't mark them read - and I personally think that is the right way to handle it ... using a move-action just move things, not more.

Expected behavior

Don't mark messages read upon moving them to archive.

Actual behavior

Messages are marked read as soon as they are moved.

Logs

No response

[joohnq]

I identified where this issue occurs, but I want to know if it actually needs to be fixed or if it's the app's default behavior. If it does need to be fixed, should we ask the user if they want to mark it as read when archiving, or simply move it to the archive while keeping its current read status?

[kewisch]

Hey folks. This was indeed intentional. As we don't currently have telemetry we're testing a few changes on beta. I respect that everyone has their own way of processing emails, but the way I understand archiving is more of a "I've processed this and I want to keep it in case I need to dig it out later", rather than a "I've acknowledged this and want to add it to my reading list for later because I haven't read it now"

I do see that a number of other clients take the approach to just archive without changing read status.

You are the first user who has gotten back to us on this (that I am aware of), congratulations :-)

I'm wondering if for your use case having a "read later" folder and then moving messages to that folder instead would be a viable way to proceed? Do you see any downsides with that approach? Really interested in some nuance here as we'd like to find out if this is a good default moving forward.

[TheFeelTrain]

I will chime in since nobody else has, "I've processed this and I want to keep it in case I need to dig it out later" is exactly how I use it so I prefer it this way. I actually stumbled upon this thread trying to figure out how to get the desktop app to also do it.

I think the ideal solution would be adding a setting for it to make both camps happy.

[neufeind]

Sorry for my late reply. I used the previous behaviour (make read-marker as-is when archiving) and it fitted my usecase better. On one account I sometimes get a lot of mails. When being away from the desktop for a day (or a few) I tend to look if there is something important to take care of "right now". I have my inbox set to load like the 50/100 newest messages.

Going through my mailbox I

• read emails (detail-view) and either delete them (if it's just an unimportant log-message or so)
• if it does not need any further attention or "I have taken care of it" I leave it as read and move it to archive from the detail-view
• or I mark them "unread" again (from the detail-view or by swiping from the list-view) to again read them later - and in that case I move them to archive to take a look at them when I'm back in the office. This is were being able to "archive" them in unread state is important for me.

Moving things to archive allows to take an easier look if there are other new things that possibly need attention. After cleaning up I reload the mailbox to see if either new messages or older ones I haven't yet seen possibly need attention.

When you have opened a message it's already marked read. If you then move it from the detail-view or list-view to archive it would keep the read-status. If you intentionally set it back to "unread" and move it to archive then for me that's a clear decision you want to keep it unread for the moment. On the list-view I use swiping left to toggle read/unread and swiping right to move to archive. Or I could select multiple messages and use the buttons above for a mass-action. I also use threading so that a bunch of like 10 related messages shows up as only one entry on my mobile. I can go into the thread, read the first message (and maybe keep that one read), decide to read the rest later - so from the list-view I swipe (for the whole thread) to move it to the archive - and again knowing which parts I have read/unread is essential for me.

Please either for bringing back the previous behaviour (not unnecessarily changing the read-status upon archiving) or if you feel a need then please at least add a setting.

[michelboaventura]

My workflow is the opposite. For me, sending a message to archive should mark it as read. Sometimes I receive automatic expected emails like when purchasing from Amazon and I don't even want to open the message but don't want to delete it either, so I simply swipe the message to be archived and that's it. So maybe a setting like Fairmail does should be enough.

[neufeind]

Can you please consider adding a setting? This would help my daily work a lot sigh As for a default: Thunderbird on desktop does not mark mesages as read upon moving - maybe keep that as a default for mobile as well?