first of all: I love the deltachat & i think it is really good work so far! If it only would have been there before all that WhatsApp Nonsense ! I am really determinend to convince more and more of my friends to switch to it, because itâs the best greatest common divisor of all IMs.
So now my Feature Proposal. Iâve scanned through the âList of Feature Proposalsâ but I couldnât explicitly find the one that bothers me the most:
Sending multiple attachments in one message (i.e. one email)
and
Being able to even write some text in the multiple attachment message
I think itâs a very important feature for general usability of deltachat. At least thatâs what i use instant messenger for quite often: sharing multiple images of something with people. And especially: Many of my friends do not yet have deltachat. I would like to keep communicating with them over deltachat, also for advertisement reasons . But I think its not that advertising if every image I send comes as a seperate email to them .
When sending multiple images in one email we should warn when the message is bigger than the providers email attachment limit
Maybe use a default and the user can overwrite that by specifying their providers limit in the settings; the default could also be pulled from our provider db.
Furthermore we should lookup the mailbox limits of other providers and take the lowest or like 2-3 mb.
For sending many files at once a file share bot or usage of another established sidechannel (like ipfs or dat) would be better.
That way you could only share the links via email and donât waste precious email account space.
Providers could even add cryptpad-like encryption (key in anchor part of url like a-storage.bot/[fileid/hash]#[key]) so the used server/bot will never see the file in cleartext.
There are plenty of file hosts with anonymous link generation capabilities. A certain email client on my macbook pro has a big file solution along these lines for similar reasons.
Legacy texting has a media server to crush the soul out of attachments.
Hmmm⌠I get the feeling I did not make myself clear enough⌠or the last 2 posts by Pleiades and enacting seem a bit off-topic to me, or I just do not fully understand their meaning.
For clarityâs sake:
I proposed there should be the possibility to include multiple attachments in one message (not only images), which is a standard feature in the email protocol. The delta chat app only allows one attachment plus comment (ends up as one mail with text and attachment). I see no reason why it should not be simply possible to select multiple attachments and add some text to them. I see the size-of-attachment problem about it and the provider DB idea by @Simon sounds like a really good approach. Maybe for the beginning also simply displaying a warning when sending >2MB sized attachments could also be a possibility.
I think multiple attachments is very handy.
It is just annoying to send several messages, just to share 3 pictures with a group of friends or family. This is a common use case for âmessangersâ, especially on smartphones. @Pleiades: I guess, this is referring to a different use case from what you describe.
I had to use another client that doesnât support Autocrypt today to send an email with multiple attachments after I had already switched my main email client to Delta Chat.
Critical missing feature, I think, considering that most other people weâre communicating with arenât on Delta Chat (yet) and we canât send them 5 or 6 emails one after the other just for some lightweight attachments.
Maybe adding, to the topic, that voice combined with sending attachment doesnât work as well. When communicating primarily via voice, thatâs an handicap, since attachments often require context and explaining.
Good gaston, itâs certain the case that the habit of sending attachments from usual chat-apps can certain burden not only email-server, but increase memory use global very fast.
If thinking more on global effects, it carries of course dangers, dangers that soon burden email-provider as well.
I would like to add my voice to this request. Being able to add multiple attachments to each message would make Delta a more complete email replacement system. I know we are trying to be a messenger, (not email) but multiple attachments would make DC a more complete system for both types of use.
! I am really determinend to convince more and more of my friends to switch to it, because itâs the best greatest common divisor of all IMs.
. But I think its not that advertising if every image I send comes as a seperate email to them 
.