Mail: Allow to disable "Priority Inbox" (or set another starting inbox)

[guzzisti]

Feature Request

WIth release 1.4.0 the mail app introduces the "Priority Inbox" which is set as the default inbox when opening the mail app.

I'd like to have a setting to disable the "Priority Inbox" completely or at least set a another inbox (especially the "shared inbox" like in previous app version) as the default inbox to open.

[jasond2020]

In this context it would be great, if there were some preferences for choosing what is shown when "Priority Inbox" is selected. Status Quo: Priority Inbox, Favorites, Inbox. It would be good to be able to select if one only wants the see Priority Inox and Inbox. In my opinion the 'Favorites' are more of long-term interest and should not be visible all the time.

[guzzisti]

@jasond2020 Please open another issue for your request. This is something different than what i requested.

[dcrobertson01]

I would like this too. I don't know how it is supposed to work but all I get is the same emails sitting in the 'Priority Inbox' for days on end and another one occasionally joins them. I can't see any logic behind which ones are 'priority' and which ones are not.

[ChristophWurst]

I think what would make this feature more useful is to show important and unread in the first section and not all important messages, otherwise the sit there too long indeed: https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/issues/3299

[ChristophWurst]

I can't see any logic behind which ones are 'priority' and which ones are not.

It's a bit complicated to explain but basically the app looks at your other email and tries to see patterns in what is important to you, like senders from which you read most email, or people who you are in contact the most. Then it will classify the incoming messages with this knowledge.

https://nextcloud.com/blog/nextcloud-mail-introduces-machine-learning-for-priority-inbox/ might shed a bit of light on this black box.

[jasond2020]

Yes, but...
This seems to be not really working (at least for me), because there is no causality between 'many' and important (many... ...replies, ...mails, ...quotes, or whatever you have thought of for your algorithm).
My experience with this 'feature' is: it does nothing, except if i mark one specific mail as important; after that the mail stays up.
I would like to see something like this: Mark a sender (or something within the mail) als important and see every new mail fitting this 'rule' be marked important automatically. If I unmark this 'rule' (for whatever reason) i want to be asked, if this only applies to new mails or to old mails too (which then would be unmarked as well). This way there would be two (three) ways of handling the inbox: 1st: mark as favorite (static), 2nd: mark as important (dynamically, rule-based), (3rd: not marked, 'ordinary' mails)

As for now: this feature is not helping, it only makes the view on my mobile less practical, because the important and favorits are always showing up und for the new mails i have to scroll...

And for the Priority of this topic: this is high in so far, as there has to be a way to disable this (at the moment anti-)feature

[ChristophWurst]

I would like to see something like this: Mark a sender (or something within the mail) als important and see every new mail fitting this 'rule' be marked important automatically. If I unmark this 'rule' (for whatever reason) i want to be asked, if this only applies to new mails or to old mails too (which then would be unmarked as well).

This works great for you. It will be terrible for other people's workflow. That's the issue with rules and why decided not to do rule-based classification.

And for the Priority of this topic: this is high in so far, as there has to be a way to disable this (at the moment anti-)feature

I'm the maintainer and I have to set priorities. Right now it's more important to improve the feature than to prematurely disable it. If you're interested in making the feature better we can discuss ways to debug it. Just stating that it doesn't work does not help.

You're free to invest time into improving the code and send pull requests.

[jasond2020]

I would like to see something like this: Mark a sender (or something within the mail) als important and see every new mail fitting this 'rule' be marked important automatically. If I unmark this 'rule' (for whatever reason) i want to be asked, if this only applies to new mails or to old mails too (which then would be unmarked as well).

This works great for you. It will be terrible for other people's workflow. That's the issue with rules and why decided not to do rule-based classification.

And for the Priority of this topic: this is high in so far, as there has to be a way to disable this (at the moment anti-)feature

I'm the maintainer and I have to set priorities. Right now it's more important to improve the feature than to prematurely disable it. If you're interested in making the feature better we can discuss ways to debug it. Just stating that it doesn't work does not help.

You're free to invest time into improving the code and send pull requests.

You are absolutely right; my intention was to point out that i really would like to see this working in a way that fits the expectations... To me it seems like a good way, to make this an optional feature, so it can be improved while at the same time giving the user the chance to disable it as long as it does not fit the (specific) expectations. And you are right in another way: It is not my place to 'demand' something as long as i don't write the code; so, sorry for the harsh tone!

[ChristophWurst]

All good :v:

I'll think about how we can debug the priority inbox better. It's often hard to describe why it feels like it does not work. And then we can't reproduce anyhting. Maybe there is away to extract the predictions.

[Karamelmar]

my request would also be, to have an option to disable the "Priority Inbox" and also "All Inboxes" or maybe an option to define a default view inbox/folder would be an alternative?
Actually i like the Priority inbox but since some users of our nextcloud instance are quit confused by the automated sorting, it would be nice to have the opportunity to choose.

[ogruenig]

I would also like this "feature", and it would be good to have it soon as I start forgetting new emails.
Of course the feature of a well functioning "priority inbox" sounds compelling, but unfortunately it doesn't work for me at this time (and apparently most users), so in my "production environment" I would like to disable this until it is useful.

[umrath]

As a user my primary interest is a working app.
This is not the case.
So, my only option is to abandon the usage because the maintainer prefers to try to fix the feature instead of allowing users to disable it, when they do not want to have it.

I use rainloop now. It's not perfect either. But it has no bugs that compromise usability.

[LukaPitamic]

+1 for option to remove priority inbox.

As central communication point of "open platform" - officially endorsed and integrated email client in Nextcloud - app should definitely allow user to set it up the way he/she prefers.
BY DEFINITION!

Me personally(and I'm not very special), I set filters outside client to segment emails and throw them in dedicated "IMAP" folders.

Nevertheless - I LOVE NEXTCLOUD!!!!!!

[Ornias1993]

Agreed, me and my wife tried it and don't want it.
Why do we need to be forced to have a priority inbox that could quite easily be disabled?

--
Okey i've looked into it a bit, it seems we can change the mailbox on load with in this code portion:

        if (this.$route.name === 'home' && accounts.length > 1) {
            // Show first account
            const firstAccount = accounts[0]
            // FIXME: this assumes that there's at least one mailbox
            const firstMailbox = this.$store.getters.getMailboxes(firstAccount.id)[0]
            console.debug('loading first mailbox of first account', firstAccount.id, firstMailbox.databaseId)

in src/views/Home.vue

Also we can also hide the menu item using CSS:
id="mailbox-priority"

We just need a toggle to set both and we're done.

[LukaPitamic]

@Ornias1993 elegant solution - css override! Does it focus automatically on inbox when mail app is loaded?

[Ornias1993]

@Ornias1993 elegant solution - css override! Does it focus automatically on inbox when mail app is loaded?

Yes, but you still need to replace the first mailbox that loads when you click "mail", I think that can be done with the earlier mentioned codeportion.

But instead of disabling the priority mailbox, we could just give users the option to select a different mailbox to load at start and they can use CSS to hide the menu item if they like.

---

To be fair to @christophwurst I never like(d) priority mailboxes in any way-shape or form. It has nothing to do with your code being bad. Some people might simply not like the whole concept.... call it "old fasioned" ;-)

[ChristophWurst]

Okay, I have some ideas. Could everyone with issues please help us debug those problems? I've started a separate ticket at https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/issues/3968. Your help is really important. I can't debug those problems as long as they are not reproducible locally …

[ChristophWurst]

To be fair to @ChristophWurst I never like(d) priority mailboxes in any way-shape or form. It has nothing to do with your code being bad. Some people might simply not like the whole concept.... call it "old fasioned" ;-)

Understandable :v:

[ChristophWurst]

Reminder that I'm waiting for feedback with the priority inbox problems at https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/issues/3968 :v:

[cyrilst]

To be fair to @ChristophWurst I never like(d) priority mailboxes in any way-shape or form. It has nothing to do with your code being bad. Some people might simply not like the whole concept.... call it "old fasioned" ;-)

Understandable ✌️

Can I insist a bit more on this ? While the PI is an awesome functionality, some people are really uncomfortable with it. There is an option to unsubscribe from every folder. I'm sure something similar for the PI would be perfect. Also, completely disabling the feature would surely save some resources…

[ChristophWurst]

Right now it's more a question of having enough people to test this additional path in our application than a technical limitation.

The more testers, reviewers and contributors we have, the easier. If you wish to help make this app better with one of those three contributions please me know.

[feutl]

@ChristophWurst
I am a little lost, too many references. Anyhow, how can we / I help to test whatever path ;)

[umrath]

I'm not sure if you get the testing you wish for from the people interested in this fix here.
At least I abandoned the mail app for the time being (and use rainloop for now) until I get the information that Priority Inbox is gone.

Of course I cannot speak for the others. But I wouldn't be surprised if the others would react in a similar way.

[ChristophWurst]

Keep trolling, I don't care if you use a different email client.

[ChristophWurst]

@ChristophWurst
I am a little lost, too many references. Anyhow, how can we / I help to test whatever path ;)

It's not about this change exclusively, it's about testing the app (prereleases) on a regular basis to ensure we don't break anything.

[umrath]

Keep trolling, I don't care if you use a different email client.

Why do you think I'm trolling?
I'm merely trying to explain why you do not get the test coverage you wish to get.
You drive people away with your attitude.

This issue is serious. Please handle it as such.

[ChristophWurst]

Just because I don't follow what you request doesn't mean I don't take this serious. You might want to read up on https://nextcloud.com/contribute/code-of-conduct/.

[ChristophWurst]

For those that are here to constructively move this forward, here's some info for the required change

• PI only exists client-side, hence no back-end needs to be changed
• It's all handled in https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/tree/master/src/store
• There is lost of existing tests that ensure the integrity of the PI logic, those need to be extended for this, see https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/tree/master/src/tests/unit/store
• Background synchronization has to be rewritten for both parts as the current logic is tailored for PI updates

Happy tinkering :v: