Snoozed messages also go into Archive

[Fenman]

I haven't quite worked out the exact behaviour - but when I Snooze some messages, a copy also goes into Archive.

Is this to be expected?

Additional info: One of my messages just came out of Snooze, but a copy stayed in Archive.

[Berenburger]

Are you using labels instead of folders?
Then Archive became All mail. That name says enough.

[n5bb]

You are going to need to tell us many more details about your experience. My suspicion is that an email client and/or Fastmail rules are involved, or that you are switching back and forth between Folders and Labels mode and have somehow produced an abnormal situation.

I went to Folders mode and tested this as follows:

• I sent a test message to myself, so that I had a fresh email in my Inbox.
• I checked and the test message was only in Inbox, and was not found in the Archive folder.
• I then snoozed that message for a few minutes.
• The test message was then only in the Snoozed folder, and was not found in Archive or Inbox.
• After the message returned to my Inbox, I looked and it was not in the Archive folder.
• So I can’t duplicate your complaint from the information provided. Of course, a Fastmail rule or email client might be effectively adding the message to Archive, such as by placing a copy of the message in the Archive folder.
• Archive is an odd feature when you consider folders, labels, and other tags (such as Spam and Trash). Email clients complicate matters. Archiving a message removes the Inbox label and the message will then appear in the Archive folder. See Fastmail Help.

Bill

[Fenman]

Thanks for the responses. I've tried out a few scenarios and hope the following makes sense.

I have always used folders. I have used Betterbird to view emails occasionally. I have removed this account from it now,

The current situation is this. A fresh email when snoozed or even re-snoozed does not also go into Archive.

Some old emails that I would have seen in Betterbird - and have previously snoozed - do also go into Archive and stay there even after the snooze period ends.

I don't have any rules that explicitly send emails to Archive. I did notice the following in Sieve. I'm not conversant with Sieve.

# Then archive or clear implicit keep if skipping inbox
if string :is "${skipinbox}" "Y" {
if not string :is "${hasmailbox}" "Y" {
fileinto
:specialuse "\\Archive"
"INBOX.Archive";
} else {
discard;

[JeremyNicoll]

Originally Posted by Fenman

I did notice the following in Sieve. I'm not conversant with Sieve.

Basically the Sieve code generated from your GUI-set rules tests each of the conditions you've set up in turn, and for those that say a message should be placed in a folder other than INBOX, set a specific-destination-folder flag, and set the "skipinbox" flag to "Y". So it looks as if that latter flag means "later I intend to put the email somewhere other than INBOX".

Later on, it tests all the destination-folder flags and actually reroutes the mail as required, and sets another flag "hasmailbox" to Y. That flag must mean "I have now rerouted the email".

Some time after that, near the end of the logic, they do the logic that you quoted; in essence it is saying that if a message was originally flagged to be placed in a specific folder, but later on was never moved there, then put it into the Archive (presumably as a safety feature).


It's hard to see why a message would fail to be routed unless either:

- the generated Sieve code had a section to set the "skipinbox" flag to Y for that message, but did not have a section to do the reroute. That shouldn't happen, but could do if FM screwed-up.

- maybe there's some circumstance where a reroute can be attempted, but fail, so the "hasmailbox" flag never gets set

- maybe there's some other piece of Sieve code that's interfered with all of this.


I think you need to look carefully at the mails this is happening to, then contact support and ask them how/why it is happening. You'll need to tell them the exact messageid(s) etc so they can look in their logs to see what happened to it.

[Fenman]

Belated thanks, JeremyNicoll. It all helps.

I have pinned down the behaviour. The issue is that if I Snooze a single new message, it's fine - but if I try to Snooze a thread of three or more messages, a duplicate goes into Archive. It remains there after the end of the Snooze period.

I have reported it to Fastmail but with no helpful response yet.

[n5bb]

I finally was able to duplicate that behavior. My guess is that when you snooze a message it is removed from your Inbox, so the Inbox flag on that message is removed. The Archive “folder” I believe is actually just a place to hold messages when they have been removed from the Inbox but haven’t been marked as spam or deleted. This might be a side effect of getting both the label and folder modes to work seamlessly.

Bill

[Fenman]

I've received this explanation from Fastmail Tier 3 support:

When you snooze a conversation, only the last email in the conversation is actually snoozed. The other emails in the conversation gets moved to the "Archive" folder. When you unsnooze, the emails moved to the "Archive" folder will remain there and only the email that was snoozed will be moved back to the Inbox folder. So, you would see one email in Inbox and the rest of the emails in your "Archive" folder.

While I understand this can cause some confusion when you are viewing the emails from your "Archive" folder, this is currently working as expected. The behavior would seem a bit more seemless in "label" mode because there is no "Archive" folder in label mode.

The current behavior is by design and there is currently no way to change this behavior. However, I am happy to pass your feedback to our team concerned.

I still find the behaviour rather odd, but as I use Snooze a lot I think I'll take a leap and try using labels.

[hadaso]

Originally Posted by Fenman

… as I use Snooze a lot I think I'll take a leap and try using labels.

I use Snooze a lot and I don't use labels. However I also don't use conversations but rather view single messages separately, so I never encountered this behavior.

[Fenman]

Originally Posted by hadaso

I use Snooze a lot and I don't use labels. However I also don't use conversations but rather view single messages separately, so I never encountered this behavior.

Thanks, hadaso. I was wondering whether to go single messages but I wondered how easy it would be to keep track of a long conversation. Is there a knack?

[hadaso]

In most email conversations the previous messages are quoted in the body of the email anyway. Some conversations go forever and ever with the subject changing over time. Sometimes I trim the irrelevant quoted messages and continue with only what's relevant quoted. I've encountered people that use conversations as a kind of filing system: instead of composing a new message they reply to some old message with a close subject. So some conversations ended up containing hundreds or thousands of messages, just because the other side wants to file them together. That's why I don't use conversations. When I want to see all the correspondence with someone I search for their email address.