User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) Build Identifier: 2.0.0.9 (20071031) I've been testing Thunderbird with IMAP accounts. One issue I've come across is that the "Disk Space" account settings under Edit>Properties>[Account]>Offline & Disk Space seem to use unspecific/confusing wordage. In particular, the portion "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted" seems very ambiguous, and I have failed to find any clarifying text. The primary point of confusion is that IMAP stores messages remotely, so it would seem there is nothing much on the "local disk" to use up space, except downloaded (cached) mail data. That would lead me to believe "permanently deleted" actually means deleting data off the server, but that is inconsistent with the other options available on this tab which apparently do deal with local data. To phrase the problem another way, this option does not differentiate between different forms of "disk space." - It fails to clarify if the option is working remotely or locally. If working locally, the phrase "permanently deleting" is really false; the mail is still present on the server. If working remotely, "disk space" may be misleading since the option doesn’t just affect the local disk as the other options do. Reproducible: Always

It doesn't say *who's* disk space;) I believe it deletes on the server too.

agreed on that and reproducible on trunk version 3.0a1pre (2008040204)

We should edit dialog to give user more details about it to make it less ambiguous from now.

Now that IMAP accounts are using offline storage by default, this ambiguity is getting more relevance. A user may read it as keeping a limit on the data stored locally, whereas in fact it would remove also the remote messages, thus causing data loss based on this misunderstanding. A potential problem I'd see with simply rephrasing retentionCleanup.label is that the same label is used for the Account Settings and Folder Properties, as well as for IMAP, POP, and Local Folders. Thus, either that phrase would have to be neutral with respect to the folder type, or a special version would have to be introduced specifically for IMAP folders ("local and remote disk space").

I found this report while asking myself the same question (happily I thought about that BEFORE trying: that would have been a catastrophe). I think that choosing to delete the server version is a very unfortunate choice for this feature: if one has LOTS of messages he's probably using the server space as a permanent storage. That's what I do: thunderbird should not offer to do automatic administrative work on the server (such as deleting messages) or at least there should be separate options for deleting local or server mail.

Comment #5 here goes in line with bug 473248 comment #1: > The entry should be either removed from the offline section for IMAP servers or > it should only delete the local copy of the messages. Raising the importance level from "trivial" to "major" as this is clearly misleading and may cause data loss if misinterpreted (not sure if it justifies "critical" rating as the duplicate was rated).

Ok, matti insists on "critical"... :-) If the charge is to either relabel or remove the retention-period section from the dialogs, this should be doable for TB3; restricting the retention to the offline copies only would imply some further efforts to make this work.

Sure, it's a dataloss because this is very easy misunderstood. It should be clear in the pop3 case that a local deleted message is gone but for Imap i would expect that only local stored message bodys, that are used for offline use, are deleted. That assumption makes sense because it's in the offline and disk space settings.

Bryan, any suggestion for an IMAP-specific wording to resolve the ambiguity, or shall the retention-policy setting simply be hidden for such accounts? The latter would be the easiest fix without involving any string changes. I wouldn't see any adaption of the backend code in time for TB 3.0, as this would imply modification of the offline-synchronization code to avoid reloading such locally deleted messages (this can't be done yet, I assume).

You can't just hide it. That would drop the feature for IMAP users, and, make it impossible for existing users to change the features they have set up already. We could add something like "from both the server and offline storage" to the current label.

I like magnus' idea as a short-term and easy fix. Anyone care to whip up a patch? I don't think this blocks, but making it better seems worthwhile.

Actually, I'm just working on a patch in line with comment #11; here a couple of advance screen shots of the updated Account Manager for an IMAP account, as well as the Folder Property descriptions for IMAP (top right) and Local Folders (bottom right). Since extending the current label forces it into a second line anyway, I've added explicit "remote" and "local" words to avoid any ambiguity. I'll post the patch soon. This will also require an update of the SeaMonkey strings as the Account Manager is shared Mail/News code.

This patch introduces a new entity "retentionCleanupImap.label" which is used for accounts of type "imap" only, whereas "retentionCleanup.label" remains in effect for "movemail,pop3,nntp,rss,none" server types. The only change in the old label is the addition of a missing ":" at the end. Corresponding string changes are proposed for both Thunderbird and SeaMonkey, where the current Folder Properties label in SM states "Keep:" rather than the full label. This is now adapted to match TB's labels. If SeaMonkey doesn't want these changes, "retentionCleanupImap.label" and "retentionCleanup.label" can be made identical, reflecting the current phrasing.

Comment on attachment 358107 [details] [diff] [review] Proposed patch >-<!ENTITY retentionCleanup.label "Keep:"> >+<!ENTITY retentionCleanup.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted:"> >+<!ENTITY retentionCleanupImap.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted from both the remote server and local offline storage:"> Unfortunately this totally inverts the sense of this phrase, which doesn't match up with the other labels in this file.

Bummer - I had noticed that the description was different in the SeaMonkey Folder Properties compared with the Thunderbird phrasing, but apparently didn't look far enough to realize that the logic is inverted. Unless you want to adapt the "Delete" logic over the "Keep" phrase, those labels could read instead: > <!ENTITY retentionCleanup.label "Keep:"> >+<!ENTITY retentionCleanupImap.label "Keep on remote server and offline storage:"> Note that this affects only the SeaMonkey Folder Properties labels, anything else should still apply. Any other remarks on backend or Account Manager labels before updating the patch?

I think the ':' should be '.'. IIRC someone complained also pop, since he had "keep on server" set and didn't think those "online pop" messages would get deleted. So I'm not sure the remote note should be imap specific.

(In reply to comment #17) > I think the ':' should be '.'. There are colons in the other Account Manager settings (e.g., the download-size offline box above the retention-period setting) and in the Folder Properties ("Keep:" for SeaMonkey), thus I kept it consistent. > IIRC someone complained also pop, since he had "keep on server" set and didn't > think those "online pop" messages would get deleted. That "keep on server" option is different from the Retention Period though, so it's not only working locally? I'm not using POP myself, thus wouldn't know. Any reference or can someone confirm that POP needs to be covered as well? Newsgroup messages are hopefully deleted only locally, I assume.

Re the dot: well (at least in thunderbird) this is more of an explanation, not that tightly coupled to the choices as the other ones. Well the retention settings delete messages according to what it's set to. And if you have "keep on server" + "until i delete them" it's deleted from the server too as a consequence. (I didn't verify though.)

I'm flexible with the dot/colon issue and let Bryan decide. I see your point, and it is inconsistently handled in the l10n translations (some have a dot at the end, some but less a colon, most follow the en-US locale and don't have any punctuation at all). The colon would stay for the SM-"Keep:" phrase though. If indeed the messages are also deleted from the POP server, that would imply adding another entity "retentionCleanupPop.label" with something like "locally and as left on the server" added (the IMAP wording won't fit too well here). Makes it somewhat more complicated but would probably be the right thing to do to avoid that ambiguity as well.

- changed SeaMonkey Folder Properties labels back to "Keep" (comment #15); - used period rather than colon on descriptive labels (comment #17), also in correspondence with the majority of l10n translations; - added "retentionCleanupPop.label" for POP-specific labels (comment #19).

This looks good except for one message that sounds confusing. "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted locally and as left on the remote server." Is the "as left on the remote server" text included because we don't know what the POP settings are? Not to complicate it more, but I'm wondering if we should just be showing a different message for those 2 settings.

Yes, the "as left on the remote server" phrase comes from the fact that at this point it is not known what the actual value of that setting is. The XUL code simply switches the labels based on "imap", "pop3", or any other server types. I don't see an easy way how to flip that based on the setting, also keep in mind that some messages may have been deleted after download while others may still reside on the server when the preference is switched forth and back (as far as I understand the POP protocol). Any better phrase for this?

How about this for the POP label? "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted, including those left on the remote server." This should be neutral to current or prior settings of that option.

Comment on attachment 358420 [details] [diff] [review] Proposed patch (v2) Nice. Include the change suggested in Comment #24 and this looks like a good improvement to me.

Comment on attachment 358420 [details] [diff] [review] Proposed patch (v2) From my non-native speaker's point of view, most of these new texts are either odd or outright incomprehensible... >+++ b/suite/locales/en-US/chrome/mailnews/folderProps.dtd Fri Jan 23 09:48:10 2009 -0600 >+<!ENTITY retentionCleanupImap.label "Keep on the remote server and local offline storage:"> "Keep on ... storage"? What's non-local offline storage/local online storage? Why "the" for "server", but no article in the second part? >+<!ENTITY retentionCleanupPop.label "Keep locally and as left on the remote server:"> "Keep ... as left"??! >+++ b/suite/locales/en-US/chrome/mailnews/pref/am-offline.dtd Fri Jan 23 09:48:10 2009 -0600 >+<!ENTITY retentionCleanup.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted."> I know this is the old sentence, but wouldn't "... deleted permanently." sound better? >+<!ENTITY retentionCleanupImap.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted from both the remote server and local offline storage."> First, see comments above on "the" and "local", etc. Second, this still doesn't clarify that the deletions will happen at the same time. It still sounds like "can, but doesn't need to". >+<!ENTITY retentionCleanupPop.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted locally and as left on the remote server."> Just as incomprehensible as its folderProps bro'.

Ok, so this needs some more work. Before posting an updated patch, I'd like to get some feedback from the reviewers and to a consensus on the labels; those should be intuitive but nevertheless unambiguous. I've reordered the review comments a bit to make the response to comment #26 easier. All labels: >> +<!ENTITY retentionCleanup.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted."> > I know this is the old sentence, but wouldn't "... deleted permanently." sound > better? This may be an en-US/en-GB issue, my feeling is that "deleted permanently" sounds more fluent in that order. Neil, Bryan? IMAP labels: >> +<!ENTITY retentionCleanupImap.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted from both the remote server and local offline storage."> > What's non-local offline storage/local online storage? This redundancy was actually intended to make clear that "server" is on the "remote" end whereas "offline storage" is on the "local" end (comment #13). We can drop it if it's overdone. > Why "the" for "server", but no article in the second part? Yepp, that's inconsistent. If being concise is preferred over style, either "the" can be dropped to save some space. The suggestion below still has it for the server but rephrased the offline-copy part which uses "any" instead. >> +<!ENTITY retentionCleanupImap.label "Keep on the remote server and local offline storage:"> > "Keep on ... storage"? That's specific to the SeaMonkey Folder Properties, the "Keep" without the context of "message" is clearly irritating, I agree. The other two items were discussed in the Account Manager labels. > Second, this still doesn't clarify that the deletions will happen at the same > time. It still sounds like "can, but doesn't need to". That's probably the toughest one to resolve. I see the ambiguity, but something like "synchronously" or "simultaneously" is rather complicated, "at the same time" quite wordy. I'd give "along with" a try, see suggestions below, or we can say "including" as proposed for the POP labels. POP labels: >> +<!ENTITY retentionCleanupPop.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted locally and as left on the remote server."> Did you see the version agreed on in comment #24 with Bryan, this should work? > "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted, including > those left on the remote server." >> +<!ENTITY retentionCleanupPop.label "Keep locally and as left on the remote server:"> > "Keep ... as left"??! Same issue as with the IMAP label. I'd adapt the SM phrase to match the Account Manager label and add "message" to the context. In summary, proposing the following labels (with "permanently" switched and marked [optional] items): Thunderbird and SeaMonkey Account Manager labels: > retentionCleanup.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be deleted permanently." > retentionCleanupImap.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be deleted permanently on the [remote] server, along with any [local] offline copies." > retentionCleanupPop.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be deleted permanently, including those left on the [remote] server." SeaMonkey-specific Folder Properties labels, trying to keep them in a single line: > retentionCleanup.label "Keep messages:" > retentionCleanupImap.label "Keep messages on the server, along with any offline copies:" > retentionCleanupPop.label "Keep messages, including those left on the remote server:" Hope this will do as a starting point, please comment.

> (comment #26) wouldn't "... deleted permanently." sound better? Being far from an expert in English grammar, I have looked into online dictionaries and paper style guides. The current order appears to be correct (at least in American English), where the adverb ("permanently") modifies the adjective ("deleted"), in turn modifying the noun ("message"): To delete a message (used as a verb). The deleted message (past participle adjective derived from the verb). The [permanently deleted] message (adverb+adjective in attributive form). The [message is [permanently deleted]] (adverb+adjective in predicative form). This can be flipped in the locales following British English if rules are different there. Also, recognizing that the typical user for Thunderbird may be different from the one for SeaMonkey, I would retain the "local" and "remote" for TB to make it unambiguous for the inexperienced user where the messages are located, but drop them for SM where the users may more likely be aware of those terms. Proposed Thunderbird labels: > retentionCleanup.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted." > retentionCleanupImap.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted on the remote server, along with any local offline copies." > retentionCleanupPop.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted, including those left on the remote server." SeaMonkey Account Manager: > retentionCleanup.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted." > retentionCleanupImap.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted on the server, along with any offline copies." > retentionCleanupPop.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted, including those left on the server." SeaMonkey Folder Properties: > retentionCleanup.label "Keep messages:" > retentionCleanupImap.label "Keep messages on the server, along with any offline copies:" > retentionCleanupPop.label "Keep messages, including those left on the server:" I'll post a respective patch tomorrow night if no further comments come in.

(In reply to comment #28) > > (comment #26) wouldn't "... deleted permanently." sound better? ... > This can be flipped in the locales following British English if rules are > different there. I wasn't aware that this might be a AE vs. BE matter. My thoughts were based upon emphasis: "deleted permanently" places more emphasis on the "permanently", imo. I'm fine either way, especially if native speakers don't feel like this. :) > > retentionCleanupImap.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted on the remote server, along with any local offline copies." How about "..., along with their local offline copies."? "Any" sounds very scary, giving the impression of random local deletions. Especially "any copies" sounds a bit like "We delete not only the message on the server, but even your multiple copies in different folders as well!" > > retentionCleanupPop.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted, including those left on the remote server." This, too, gives the impression of random deletions - this time on the server... How about "..., including their original left on the remote server."? Same for the respective SM strings. > SeaMonkey Folder Properties: > > > retentionCleanup.label "Keep messages:" The "Keep:" in the old string marks the beginning of a sentence, which then gets continued by the options following: "() All messages", etc. But I do think that this pretty bad wording, especially since it's not even consistent in itself. That said, your "Keep messages:" is better at least (and we should redo the remaining wording in another bug, but that's another topic). > > retentionCleanupImap.label "Keep messages on the server, along with any offline copies:" > > retentionCleanupPop.label "Keep messages, including those left on the server:" See above on "any" and "those left".

I'm not a native, but "can be permanently deleted" sounds better to me. "remote server"? Servers are always remote, so I don't see why we need "remote".

All right, let's keep it "permanently deleted" then unless a qualified native speaker objects... :-) (In reply to comment #30) > Servers are always remote, so I don't see why we need "remote". If it's the overall opinion here that we don't need it to avoid ambiguity even for a novice user, "local"/"remote" certainly can be dropped for Thunderbird as well, especially since the revised labels discussed below get a bit longer. (In reply to comment #29) > > > ..., along with any [local] offline copies." > How about "..., along with their [local] offline copies."? > "Any" sounds very scary, giving the impression of random local deletions. Agreed, will change that. > > > ..., including those left on the [remote] server." > This, too, gives the impression of random deletions - this time on the > server... > How about "..., including their original left on the [remote] server."? Fine as well, but it would be "originals" since this has to be plural too. > The "Keep:" in the old string marks the beginning of a sentence, which then > gets continued by the options following: "() All messages", etc. But I do think > that this pretty bad wording, especially since it's not even consistent in > itself. That said, your "Keep messages:" is better at least (and we should redo > the remaining wording in another bug, but that's another topic). I'll retain the "Keep" logic for those labels but make the additional changes in analogy to the Account Manager.

> retentionCleanup.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted." I think this is clear that old messages can be deleted. > retentionCleanupImap.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted on the remote server, along with any local offline copies." I like the wording of "originals" here but I'd actually like to remove the word "offline" as it's pretty confusing in terms of offline/online. In most areas we moved to "sync" as the wording for what was "offline" so I think "local copies" describes it well enough. "To recover disk space old messages can be permanently deleted, both the local copies and originals on the remote server. > retentionCleanupPop.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted, including those left on the remote server." Again, moving toward using the "originals" wording. "To recover disk space old messages can be permanently deleted, including originals on the remote server." re: remote vs. local. Leave it in the messages. Less people know what a "server" is than understand what remote vs. local is, so I'd like to keep the distinction alive even though it seems redundant to some of us.

> "To recover disk space old messages can be permanently deleted, including > originals on the remote server." I still think that adding a "their" makes it more understandable what's goinmg to be deleted...

Agreed with comment #33, "including their originals" would be more specific, also "both their local copies and originals..." for the IMAP labels. Shall I create different labels for SeaMonkey or will you adopt Bryan's suggestions?

Use Bryan's version, but with 'their' and without 'remote'.

Bryan, any opinion on "their"? If not, I'll use your exact phrasing.

... for Thunderbird, that is, comment #35 for SeaMonkey.

- TB labels updated per comment #32 ("originals on the remote server"), also reduced "the local" to "local" only to avoid three "the" in a row; - SM labels updated per comment #35 ("their originals on the server"); - no changes in the backend code since v2 patch.

Comment on attachment 358969 [details] [diff] [review] Proposed patch (v3) [Checkin: Comment 46] thanks for this! looks great. The "their" doesn't look right to me, so lets keep the TB strings as they are.

Comment on attachment 358969 [details] [diff] [review] Proposed patch (v3) [Checkin: Comment 46] Some suggestions for wording tweaks. >+<!ENTITY retentionCleanup.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted."> a) ... permanently deleted from your computer. >+<!ENTITY retentionCleanupImap.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted, both the local copies and their originals on the server."> b) ... permanently deleted (both local copies and originals on the server). c) ... permanently deleted (from both your computer and the server). >+<!ENTITY retentionCleanupPop.label "To recover disk space, old messages can be permanently deleted, including their originals on the server."> d) ... permanently deleted (including originals on the server). e) ... permanently deleted (including from the server).

Since comment #40 talks about "suggestions" only, I'm not going to make any changes in the Thunderbird and/or SeaMonkey labels unless those are explicitly requested by either of the reviewers. Some remarks: > a) ... permanently deleted from your computer. The retentionCleanup.label phrase is now exclusively present in the context of the Local Folders, thus it should be unambiguous that this affects only what's kept on one's own computer (see also comment #32, first part). > b-e) ... permanently deleted (...). I was considering using parentheses first myself, but it somehow looked odd to me, thus I went with the continuous sentences instead. I think that the commas provide a sufficient structure to those labels already in their current form.

(In reply to comment #41) > The retentionCleanup.label phrase is now exclusively present in the context of > the Local Folders No, it's used for news and rss too.

Ok, waiting for Bryan and Karsten to comment on this then.

Comment on attachment 358969 [details] [diff] [review] Proposed patch (v3) [Checkin: Comment 46] (In reply to comment #40) > a) ... permanently deleted from your computer. As long as we don't run on wetware directly, I deem "computer" as rather superfluous here. And braces would look odd, somehow. r=me as is.

Good, let's consider it done then. Push for trunk, please.

Patch checked in: http://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/510a21be10f7 (In reply to comment #45) > Good, let's consider it done then. Push for trunk, please. mailnews trunk is the same as mailnews branch at the moment. Its only the gecko backend that is different.

Thanks, and yes - I meant "trunk" in the context of comm-central.

Sorry, but I've missed a minor detail in the patch, which is easy to fix. Deferred accounts using a Global Inbox now show the POP-specific label in the Account Manager when visiting the Disk Space pane, this was previously hidden. Reason is that onPreInit() in am-offline.js addresses "retentionDescription" directly to hide it when pop3Server.deferredToAccount is set. Since the id for that label has changed, it must be "retentionDescriptionPop" now instead. The easiest may be to just reopen this bug here, and I'll put a respective one-line follow-up patch up for review, to keep everything in the same bug.

Fixes getElementById argument for the POP label, missing in original patch. Backend code only, no string changes in this one.

Thanks for the reviews, push for attachment 359910 [details] [diff] [review] on comm-central/tip please.

Comment on attachment 359910 [details] [diff] [review] Follow-up patch for deferred POP accounts [Checkin: Comment 51] http://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/4cf8dffa24c7

i just lost all my emails i have ever written or got, since 1996, because of this :( - here is my forum thread about it: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1086975

i don't know why this says "fixed", as the verbiage is still ambigious in my SeaMonkey version 2.3. More importantly, i would like to see this as an option that specifically deletes emails on the local drive, without touching the remote files, in order to save local disk space. This does NOT appear to be an option.

It's fixed because the wording was improved compared to the initial version which was rather unspecific and didn't differentiate between POP vs. IMAP accounts and local folders. There are obviously limitations in space available in the dialog. If you think it's still ambiguous please file a new bug with specific wordings that you'd like to see. For SeaMonkey, also consider improving on the Help text. This bug here is closed. > i would like to see this as an option that specifically deletes emails on the local drive There is no such option other than limiting synchronization for IMAP accounts to some date range. You can file any further suggestions of this kind as enhancement request (i.e., a new bug report with "enhancement" severity).