It would be great to have old messages (i.e., from before starting to use an application) available in delta chat, assuming the application is configured with the same pgp key.
Use case: I just migrated from the apk version of delta chat to the fdroid version, and I’m unable to do a backup with the apk version. I manually configured the fdroid version with the same pgp key, so now I’m receiving messages in both applications. I would like to get rid of the apk version, but it is the only one that shows the old messages. As they are available in the DeltaChat mail folder, it should be possible to fetch them to populate the new application.
hello @brab, why are you unable to do a backup??? you just have to go to setttings, in "chats and media"at the bottom there are a backup option, that export your chats and configuration to a file .bak in your Download folder, then you import that backup in a “fresh” install of your Delta Chat from fdroid, this also helps to migrate your delta chat to other phone or to a PC, it is really useful.
[EDIT: ok, I read in another post that you have issues to create the backup, ]
regardless of the backup function… this would be nice to have. I noticed that People who are in DC Chats via Email first, expect to see these chats as soon as they install the App on the Phone or Desktop. I had a “bug” report because the person thought the app was broken for not showing chats immediately
the issue is that that are emails, not chats, Delta Chat by default don’t even show normal emails, that person may have been confused, but more confusing is IMHO that the app starts loading tons of old emails, anyway an advanced option for corner cases may be useful, mainly for loading emails in the INBOX/DeltaChat folder or chat emails, no for classic email
I think this would be very good, @adbenitez you don’t have to load them all just some (25), put an option to load more message at the end of the chat list
I can understand this request very well. Just these days a friend accidently deleted a full chat. He thought that there is an “undo” function (like WA). But it isn’t.
Unfortunately he has no backup too!
Now it would be very welcome and useful to reload (at least) the existing messages from mailserver (a kind of undo).
I think there are more people who will run into such an accident and because the backup/undo/reload issue needs to be described more clear I will open a new FR for that.
an undo option wouldn’t be good for activists, also the chat delete function will also delete the messages from the server in the future.
This is 100% user error, we can try to prevent user error but at the same time we want that the user still has full control.
Maybe we should do display an undo button for 15 seconds ala gmail? (That could work for both careless usage and “safe” deletion)
There is a confirmation dialog, we could also make it harder to accept it like type a phrase to delete it. (type chatname could be bad if you have special chars in it like emojis which increases the time you need for deletion.)
We could also think about reminding the users to make backups, in the device chat, but we should have backup encryption before we do that.
Sure, the root cause of this action really was an accident. 100% user error, clear.
But this is the story:
User tried to attach some pictures under bad network conditions, then he wants to cancel this operation and then (I don’t have all details) chat has been deleted (two years of conversation!). There has been a question for deleting (yes), but I think it was not clear in that moment for the user that not the pictures are deleted but the chat itself!!!
To mitigate that situation maybe a full red dialog should be presented and a second clear confirmation is necessary. Any idea welcome.
Ok I now understand the circumstances, but let’s start another feature proposal for this, because it is getting off topic: Make deleting chats look more dangerous
Yesterday my phone upgrade failed spectacularly, and I had to re-install it from scratch. As I did not have any DeltaChat backup, all my conversations are empty. I can still read old messages from the desktop app, or using an email client, as I have not lost the gpg key. It would be great if there was a way to tell DeltaChat that the messages in the folder can be decrypted with the provided key, hence shown in the app.
I have exported a backup from the desktop, but I don’t know how to import it in Deltachat. I searched everywhere in the configuration screen and I don’t see an import option. Am I missing something?
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