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Comment by betterunix | Hacker News Reader

"the outcry from users from not being able to undelete an email would be much louder than those wanting instant deletion."

[citation needed]

Seriously, I have trouble believing that anyone would complain about "delete" carrying any meaning other than "delete." I also find it hard to take such people seriously, given the existence of a Trash folder as a first stop for deleted messages, and All Mail as a second stop (and what is the default for deleting from All Mail? Having the message come right back to All Mail! Brilliant...).

Thanks for the tip on how to fix this behavior. It is an easy option to miss...

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Using the default Gmail settings of (a) Enable IMAP and (b) Auto Expunge on, I just deleted an email via Sparrow (IMAP). The email instantly went straight into the Trash folder and is not visible in All Mail. I expect the email to be auto-deleted in about 30 days. I agree that the behavior you're describing would be weird, but I'm not seeing it. Can you please double check?

No, I don't have a citation, but is it so hard to believe that lots of people want an undelete? I accidentally delete emails all the time and I go into the trash and fish them out. Not giving users an undo seems ... unfriendly.

EDIT: I see, it applies to Custom Folders and delete only removes the label; doesn't move it to the trash. Here's what Google has to say about it. Is this a default IMAP behavior or Gmail-IMAP specific? https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78755?hl=en

I just confirmed the behavior: I deleted a message from my Inbox, and my mail client put it in my Trash folder. I deleted the message from Trash, and it was still in All Mail. I deleted from All Mail, and when I refresh the folder it is still there. I checked the network log, and the correct EXPUNGE commands are being sent.

As for "undelete," I believe the purpose of the Trash folder is to support that. I have yet to find the email client that does not, as a default, store deleted messages in the Trash folder. I am not disputing that people want that functionality, what I am saying is that I do not think people want the behavior that I am seeing.

The fact that GMail treats "delete" as "remove labels" is very problematic. IMAP supports labels, including client-defined labels. Treating folders as "labels" only breaks the abstraction IMAP presents. I suppose this was part of Mark Crispin's gripes with GMail.

> a Trash folder as a first stop for deleted messages, and All Mail as a second stop

I was just trying this, I moved something to trash and then did a 'Delete Forever'. Nothing appeared in trash or all mail again.

The problem is that the default behavior for people who use an IMAP client is for "delete" to actually mean "keep a copy in All Mail." The server will also give a false OK status to the client following the EXPUNGE command (see the IMAP4 RFC for details), so the user is not alerted to the fact that messages are not being deleted.

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