I would like to be able to customise the name of the DeltaChat folder in my email. My existing folders all use generic names, e.g. “Lists”, “Code”, etc. and so I would like to have a folder simply named “Chats” for DeltaChat messages.
Actual behaviour
It appears I must have a folder named “DeltaChat” in my mail, which I find ugly. Whenever I see it I contemplate not using DeltaChat just so I can delete it.
Also…
I think the generic approach is better than the specific for increasing adoption. It’s easier to convince someone to have “a folder for chats” in their email than “a DeltaChat folder.” It helps with the wtf is DeltaChat!? factor.
I think allowing choice fits with the freedom-focused ethos of the project.
to the folder-name: in fact, the first implementations were using then name “Chats” which i also think is much nicer, generic etc. - unfortunately, this name has some problems with some providers.
after that, there was a loooooong discussion about the name https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-core/issues/47 - at the end we’ve chosen “DeltaChat” and voted for simplicity. for now we’ve chosen not to make the name configurable to simplify usage and support, well-known places are generally a lot easier to maintain.
It confused me that the project might run into an obstacle in using the hardcoded name “Chats” and not see this as good reason to not use a hardcoded name, and also that no one seemed to raise this as the root of the problem.
I feel like that discussion would have been better to have taken the form of recognising the existing folder name causes some issues, so primarily making the name configurable, and then deciding on a more compatible default name to ease adoption.
Is there a Github issue/PR I can subscribe to be notified of any progress on this front?
not as far as i know - and, to be honest, me personally has not regarded this as an issue the last time, at least no important one
but, for sure, this forum is the right place for such discussions and feature requests, the github issue tracker is more about bugs and things people actually work on.
I share a mailbox with my wife. The mailbox has various aliasses : administration, weborders, etc and personal addresses for each of us. For example emails to linkedin@john.mydomain.net would be delivered to the “john” folder in the mailbox we share.
We currently use Telegram to chat with each other. Benefit of telegram for us is that messages are stored server-side (multiple clients, automatic backups, etc) and drawback is that it is stored on a server we cannot choose ourselves. Delta Chat would keep the mentioned Telegram benefit while solving the mentioned Telegram drawback. I really want to try and see if we can make the move to Delta Chat. And see if we can convince others in our network to use it as well.
But, because this DeltaChat folder name is hardcoded we cannot use Delta Chat, because we share a mailbox.
I would like to use the address deltachat@john.mydomain.net and my wife would use e.g. deltachat@jane.mydomain.net.
In the Delta Chat app on my phone I would then configure a foldername like DeltaChatJohn.
On the mailserver I would configure a rule that delivers deltachat@john.mydomain.net to that DeltaChatJohn folder.
Without customizable foldername (e.g. as an experimental feature for now) this sadly is a showstopper for us. What is needed to make such feature possible? How many parts of the application would be affected? Are there any specific problem areas that can be forseen? Any help would be much appreciated!
@dev24126 Thank you for taking the time to respond!
I already have multiple addresses, but they are aliasses delivered to the same mailbox (from an IMAP point of view). For me this is not a workaround: it is doing the opposite of what I would like
Having to buy another mailbox (doubling subscription fees) just because DeltaChat is hard coded stuck to a folder name does not seem a way forward for me. Also would it mean that our mails and chats would be stored in multiple places while we are quite happy having all our messages, calendar items, tasks and contacts in a single place.
Hence the questions in my previous message : Is fixing this (even as an experimental feature) doable? Or does it open up a can of worms?
Ah, this seems to answer part of my questions, the amount of code involved some years ago at least : pull #179
But on holiday looking at diffs on my mobile sceen is not ideal to make a proper assessment
Also, might be good to point out that at the end of the original discussion @gerroon and @STPKITT also advocate for configurability, but at that time the issue was already closed comment on issue #47
Maybe I could build the client from code using a different hard-coded name. At least just to test the impact… Might be something I could try after the holidays.
Why didn’t we add it already and are currently not very in favor of implementing custom folder names:
Normal People don’t understand what these folders mean and complain after they changed settings: “I don’t receive messages anymore DC is broken” - turned out that user had accidentally enabled “watch only DeltaChat folder”
Deltachat aims to have only settings where necessary, we try to find good solutions that don’t require settings in general. (though this could a be a good exception for that rule?)
every setting or feature you add requires additional maintenance and testing in the future to make sure it keeps working.
When thinking about it this could be a special text field when setting up a new account under advanced options? but then again it is very advanced and it requires the user to be confident in setting up filter rules on their mailserver or mail provider.
I think what you really need for this usecase is not separate folders and filters, but an option for Delta Chat to ignore messages that don’t have your configured From: address in the To: field.
But might also cause complexity. If I and my wife are in a group, then messages would be delivered twice, as we are also in the To field of each others messages… Also I would like to keep them separated in the mailbox. Receiving messages I can separate using a rule to our respective DeltaChatJohn/-Jane folders (using the mailproviders ‘Delivered To’ header, specifying the alias involved), but outgoing messages all end up in the default DeltaChat folder. You can filter those on the From field, but it would be messy to have them in the same folder. Outgoing messages are not processed by rules on my mailprovider.
