2.0rc1 - message tags with IMAP and multiple computers

mrabbitt · Post by **mrabbitt** » April 12th, 2007, 5:48 am

Hi. I'm using Thunderbird 2.0rc1 on multiple computers connecting to a single account on an IMAP server. I've created custom message tags on one machine and I'm wondering how to reliably synchronize the tags in the preferences between the two computers. What I want to be able to do is to create new message tags and label messages with them on one computer and have those new tags show up for those messages on the other computer.

In one case, I created a tag on one machine, tagged multiple messages wth it; then later on the other computer, I created a new tag with the same name, and the messages showed up tagged automatically...however, I tried this with another custom tag and the messages did not appear tagged. Is this supposed to work or is there a better way to do this? I'm not sure if I created the tags in the same order on both machines--perhaps this is significant. Is there documentation which describes how the message IDs are stored on IMAP messages?

Thanks!

Post by **Daifne** » April 12th, 2007, 7:42 am

Problems with the test builds need to be discussed in the Thunderbird Builds forum. Please register and post back here. I will then move this for you.

mrabbitt · Post by **mrabbitt** » April 13th, 2007, 5:50 am

Hi, I've registered. Thanks.

Post by **steviex** » April 13th, 2007, 5:59 am

Moving to TB Builds....

jmlbkfl · Post by **jmlbkfl** » June 26th, 2007, 10:30 am

Hello,

I think that the question submited by mrabbitt is really interesting because a lot of users need this feature (when sharing a single IMAP account between several computers).

Do you have some news about it ?

Thanks a lot.

PS : excuse me for the mistakes ... I'm French

przemko · Post by **przemko** » June 27th, 2007, 3:26 am

you excused

Now, I am using multiple computers and one IMAP account. What I noticed from the very early versions of TB until now is this one funny thing. The message count for the unread messages is always incorrect. I have many subfolders and let's say a message comes in, gets filtered to a subfolder and I see it as a unread message and a number (in bold). I go home login etc, I open my mail and I don't see the message. So what I routinely do is go to Search/Messages. There I say, look in all the subfolders for blabla in the subject. When the search is gone, I restore the correct number of unread messages in my folders (so from nothing to for instance 3). I am aware of the problem so I do the stuff manually. What would be nice is that, irrespectively from where I login, TB should check the local message counsevs the IMAP server.

jmlbkfl · Post by **jmlbkfl** » June 27th, 2007, 5:52 am

Hi przemko,

Unfortunately it doesn't really help me concerning my problem

Hope you'll be more lucky with your problem

Post by **tanstaafl** » June 29th, 2007, 2:18 pm

"Is there documentation which describes how the message IDs are stored on IMAP messages?"

Use "view -> message source" and look at the contents of the Message-ID: header. Are you sure you're not confusing message ids and tags? I found some IMAP servers will store tags remotely while with others Thunderbird falls back to using the .msf file, but whatever is used is consistent and doesn't depend upon the folder.

See if http://kb.mozillazine.org/Tags helps.

jmlbkfl · Post by **jmlbkfl** » July 1st, 2007, 4:28 am

Hi Tanstaafl,

Thanks for your answer.

In your link (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Tags) a part is very interesting :
"Tags are stored the same way. Another PC (or Thunderbird using a different profile) needs to have defined the same tags to see them. Thunderbird appears to have hard coded support for five tags that mimic the old labels. If you use one of those tags on another PC and delete those five tags on your PC you can still see the tags in the remote folder though they will not be colored. It will display the tags in the folder listing but won't list them in the expanded header when you read the message."

And it's indeed what I need :
"Another PC (or Thunderbird using a different profile) needs to have defined the same tags to see them."

So, I'm looking for a way to solves this "problem" in order to be able to share tags (and the description) between multiple computers connected on a single IMAP account (without creating the sames tags on each computer).

I don't know if it could be planned in a new TB feature or if an extension doing this already exists.

Thanks again for your help.

jmlbkfl · Post by **jmlbkfl** » July 10th, 2007, 1:50 am

Hello,

Any answer ?

Thanks.

flaxthejute · Post by **flaxthejute** » July 10th, 2007, 3:21 am

jmlbkfl wrote:Hello,

Any answer ?

Thanks.

I think you'll find that this is an IMAP server thing as per this quote from http://kb.mozillazine.org/Tags

If the IMAP server didn't support that it would store labels locally in the .msf file for the folder.

flax

jmlbkfl · Post by **jmlbkfl** » July 10th, 2007, 3:47 am

I agree ... but my question is the following : is there a way to share tags between multiple computers connected on a single IMAP account (without creating the sames tags on each computer) when the IMAP server doesn't support it ?
I'm talking about custom user-defined tags avalaibles on TB2. So it's sure that these tags aren't known by IMAP servers (the tag descriptions are stored locally in the pref.js and not on the IMAP server).

In your last link there is an interesting part describing the "problem" what I want to know if it will be "solved" on day ... in order to share user-defined tags without problem :
"
Tags are stored the same way. Another PC (or Thunderbird using a different profile) needs to have defined the same tags to see them. Thunderbird appears to have hard coded support for five tags that mimic the old labels. If you use one of those tags on another PC and delete those five tags on your PC you can still see the tags in the remote folder though they will not be colored. It will display the tags in the folder listing but won't list them in the expanded header when you read the message.
"

Thanks a lot.

flaxthejute · Post by **flaxthejute** » July 10th, 2007, 6:49 am

OK, just for you. Install the extension from here - http://ext.extenzilla.org/header_tools/HeaderTools.xpi

For the record. IF the tags are stored as message attributes on the IMAP server AND the IMAP server doesn't support this THEN the tags are stored in the local .msf files.

IN THIS CASE thunderbird cannot fix or solve or anything this feature WITHOUT using an extension OR re-jigging the tagging system.

I'm sure somebody'll correct me if I'm wrong...

Flax

schvenk · Post by **schvenk** » April 24th, 2008, 10:00 am

After reading this thread and linked documentation I'm still confused. If I'm understanding correctly, Thunderbird is storing tags on the IMAP server via a X-Mozilla-Keys header. And, if two machines connected to a single IMAP account both have a given tag defined, that tag will show up in Thunderbird.

But it's not working that way. I've defined a "reading" tag on two Thunderbird installations connected to the same IMAP account (Courier-IMAP I believe), and tagged a message with it. The tag is only showing up on the machine on which it was applied. Furthermore, if I show all headers or view source on the message, I don't see any header defining tags. Am I doing something wrong? Is this an IMAP support issue? I was under the impression that any IMAP server will allow the addition of arbitrary tags.

Thanks.

hansen · Post by **hansen** » May 2nd, 2008, 6:10 pm

schvenk:

If the server supports custom keywords (Courier-IMAP supports it since 2.1, 2003-08-17, if enabled), then Thunderbird stores the tag on the servers keyword index and not in the mail itself.

If the server doesn't support custom keywords, then the tags are stored in the X-Mozilla-Keys header in the local index files (*.MSF) and and not in the mail itself.