yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
This will fix the problem in the next version of FairEmail:

Check Disposition-Notification-To for inbound messages only · M66B/FairEmail@5392585

Fully featured, open source, privacy friendly email app for Android - Check Disposition-Notification-To for inbound messages only · M66B/FairEmail@5392585

github.com

Are you sure this is incorrect in Thunderbird too?
[Android Apps and Games] L1p1c1:
I updated from 1.1780 to 1.1789 and i lost a couple of mails. Anyone had this problem ?
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
Updating the app will update the software, but won't touch any message.

Basically, the app shows what's on the email server, so the question is if the messages are still on the email server.

Edit: if this is about older messages, try 'Fetch more messages' in the three dots menu of the start screen.
[Android Apps and Games] steakhutzeee:
Thanks!

Yes i confirm that Thunderbird asks for the read recepit.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
In that case there is maybe a bug in Thunderbird too.
[Android Apps and Games] steakhutzeee:
The issue arises only when sending messages from FairEmail.

I tried just now to send a message from Thunderbird requesting only a delivery notification and i received that only. I received the message without any read recepit request.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
I double checked both sending and receiving read and delivery requests. Please send me two messages from Thunderbird, one requesting a read receipt and one a delivery receipt. Please indicate what is what. You can use 'Report issue' in the navigation menu to get my email address.

The underlying problem is that read receipts are not standardized.
[Android Apps and Games] L1p1c1:
They were new messages , i selected fetch more messages and old messages appeared even if they werent deleted between the emails that already were there.

No important mail but its ok. Wanted to understand what happened.

I will log on pc and check it out.
[Android Apps and Games] steakhutzeee:
Done. Also received the delivery status notification that one of my messages were received by your server.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
I am going to drop support for the non standard header Return-Receipt-To:

Return-Receipt-To is non standard · M66B/FairEmail@f8eec8f

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2076

github.com

This will probably fix your problem. A test version is building for you and I will send it when it's ready.
[Android Apps and Games] steakhutzeee:
Thank you very much for your support!!!
[Android Apps and Games] mkasimd:
It might be a non-standard but seems to be a widely used way of requesting return receipts. So the question is whether users using return receipts for outgoing mails will be impacted as some recipients' clients (email apps) might have been supporting the RRT header only.

My fear is that this could result in some outrages including in reviews if your commit changes the way receipts are requested.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
Maybe you are right. I will think about this.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
I am going to revert the latest commit.

Return-Receipt-To is definitely a delivery request and not a read request, whatever Thunderbird does:

Article Not Found
[Android Apps and Games] jmh2002:
Gmail is my provider and it seems that some folders are receiving new emails but not always properly syncing existing emails that have been read or deleted or starred on another device.

These are folders that are using periodic sync (but of course I'm talking after the sync period has passed). If I long press on the folder and use 'Synchronise now' then the folder updates correctly.

It seems to be a little bit random, not on any specific folder, and not directly repeatable on that same folder.

Do I maybe have a setting wrong or something? Or another hint why this might be happening?

THANKS :)
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
By default messages younger than 7 days will be synchronized only to save on battery and data usage. "Synchronize now" will check all messages. You can long press the folder and increase the sync window if you wish, but please do not complain about extra battery usage later.

The latest GitHub version has double pull down within 30 seconds to check all messages.

The point is that it is almost never useful to check all messages, possibly years old, each and everything time and that your device isn't charging all the time.
[Android Apps and Games] jmh2002:
Thanks for your reply Marcel.

I'm only syncing 1 day, and generally 1 time per hour for these folders (4 x 15mins).

These are messages that for example I have actioned (eg: deleted) on my laptop in the afternoon but when using FairEmail on my phone in the evening they are still there.

A manual 'Synchronise now' fixes it, so it seems (even it's not the actual problem) like sometimes the automatic sync isn't working properly.

The weird thing is that new emails DO show. It only seems like existing emails that aren't 'updated' - deleted, read/unread, starred, etc.

Or I'm losing my mind, could be too I suppose... :D
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
If 'Synchronize now' updates/removes the messages, the messages are outside of the sync window, which is in your case 1 day.
[Android Apps and Games] steakhutzeee:
Hi,

i'm a little confused actually. What this means?

Just to be aligned. The issue only arises with FairEmail. Thunderbird works fine.

It's only on FairEmail that when i select only the delivery recepit i still receive a read recepit.

So i sent a message from FairEmail, select only the delivery notification. Still from FairEmail i read the message and i'm also requested to confirm that i read the message.

So the issue is only with FairEmail at this point for my testing.

This is clear also because i sent two messges to you from Thunderbird, one with only delivery notification and the other with only read recepit and those worked just fine.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
The issue is with Thunderbird, which considers the "Return-Receipt-To" header as a read receipt request, while it is a delivery receipt request (at least one of the possible forms). See for example here:

Article Not Found

Read Receipt vs. Delivery Receipt when Sending Email

If I remove this header, other people will likely complain as remarked by @mkasimd
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
@jmh2002 long press the folder (inbox) in the folder list, select edit properties and increase the sync window to 7 days (which is currently the default). This will probably solve your problem in most cases.
[Android Apps and Games] jmh2002:
Ok, but these are not messages that are 7 days old. They are at most 24 hours old, normally less.

So I'm not sure that's the issue?

And in any case if the folder is syncing hourly it should always be up to date shouldn't it? (well, within 1 hour). I'm at home connected to WiFi so I always have Internet. So I should never be outside the sync window should I?

When I've had these incidents happen I've long pressed on the folder to check the last sync time (at the top of the pop up) and it's always within the hour, there's no indication of the folder not syncing.

But as I said, using 'Synchronise now' updates/removes the messages so for some reason the folder didn't totally sync.

It is a bit strange.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
The app will query messages younger than the sync window from the email server and check these messages. Maybe the email server is not returning all / the correct messages. Try to change the sync window to 7 days as suggested.
[Android Apps and Games] jmh2002:
Yes ok I'll try it.

Just to double check, should I have Quick Sync Enabled for Gmail?
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
My advice is to disable it for now.
[Android Apps and Games] jmh2002:
Thank you Marcel, great support as usual (y)
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
Version 1.1790 is available on GitHub now.

Changelog/download:

https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/releases

This is a release candidate for the next Play store version.
[Android Apps and Games] steakhutzeee:
Ok, so we actually have 3 options in FairEmail. To request both delivery and read recepit, only delivery, only recepit.

At this point the second one is useless because of the first one that does the same thing?
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
All three choices work as expected and send the right headers and the right SMTP commands. I have checked this thoroughly.

FairEmail can't fix that other apps send wrong headers or do the wrong things when receiving messages with headers correctly set by FairEmail.

This is based on the documentation I have found, some of which is unofficial. Some of the headers are commonly used, but despite that not standardized.
[Android Apps and Games] steakhutzeee:
Sorry but i do not understand.

Why if send a message requesting only a delivery confirmation from the server, from Thunderbird i have no issue, but instead if i send it from FairEmail i'm instead also prompted to confirm that i read the message?

I mean that sending a message from FairEmail requesting only a delivery confirmation from the server always asks also for a read confirmation.

From Thunderbird i can choose to send one or the other or both. In FairEmail instead at this point the options:

-Ask delivery+read recepit

-Delivery recepit

are acting the same, so basically duplicates.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
Send yourself a message with all three choices and you'll see it works fine in FairEmail.

Thunderbird seems to consider the Return-Receipt-To header as a read receipt request, which is incorrect according to my research.
[Android Apps and Games] mkasimd:
I'll try rephrasing Marcel's answer in layman's terms to avoid further confusion.

Fairemail sets the header "Return-Receipt-To" (RRT). This is a meta data commonly used for requesting delivery receipts. That's what that RRT header is commonly used for.

However when Thunderbird reads an email and sees the RRT header present, Thunderbird interprets it as a read receipt. Meanwhile almost all other non-Thunderbird email apps in the whole world of email apps consider it as a delivery receipt the way the RRT header is supposed to be used as per non-RFC standard.

Non-RFC standard here means that the RRT header has not been standardized through a Request For Comments (RFC) at the IETF, the leading open standardization institute for all about internet services. However, non-RFC standard also means that it is widely recognized by the software community and utilized as a de-facto standard. That non-RFC de-facto standard defined the RRT header as a delivery receipt. Thunderbird however disrespects this non-RFC standard.

It is thus clearly a mistake on Thunderbird's side as Thunderbird is the one email app interpreting the RRT header wrongly for received / incoming emails.

A simile that may help understand things. If the radio states one single driver is driving in the wrong direction on the highway and you are seeing that "everyone else is driving in the wrong lane / direction", then it is likely you who is actually the one driving in wrong direction. The same way, it is Thunderbird driving in the wrong here.
[Android Apps and Games] steakhutzeee:
Performed the following tests:

-FairEmail updated to latest version, so not on the test version anymore:

Sent to me messages with all three choices and they are working fine when reading the messages i received in FairEmail itself. So there was actually some change to the FairEmail code?

-Thunderbird:

This is a little strange.

If i open the message i sent with the "delivery receipt only" i sent from FairEmail i am also prompted for the "read receipt".

If i send a new message from Thunderbird with the "delivery receipt only" i am not prompted for the "read receipt".

So i actually don't know, Thunderbird is sending the correct headers but it's not able to read them correctly? General question, maybe i can notify the Thunderbird devs to have a check at this at this point.
[Android Apps and Games] fraschi51:
To narrow it down more, you might want to try a few other mail clients.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
I have asked the BetterBird dev to look into this.

Note that the email server should respond to a delivery request, not the email client.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
The unbalance between the amount of work I put into this project and bad Play store reviews is shifting in the wrong way. As already said, next year I am going to put less effort into this project. The app will keep being maintained and supported, but the number of new features will significantly be reduced. At least a few dozen people need to ask for something and it needs to be generally useful (or useful to myself). So, if you hear "no" or "low priority", you know the reason now.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
The next version of the app will download headers "inline" to resend a message. There will be a small popup telling you the download was initiated. In most cases this will be soon enough completed and result in starting the message composer.
[Android Apps and Games] heinhuiz:
Do I understand correctly that spam is not filtered anymore using message classification? Because these days in one of my catchall inboxes I keep receiving virtually the same message over and over again, only with different To and From addresses, even after marking all of them as spam with all options (except domain block) set.
[Android Apps and Games] heinhuiz:
FWIW, I have tested all 3 options with ProtonMail and they work as expected.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
Blocking senders and message classification are two different features.
[Android Apps and Games] heinhuiz:
Ohw I thought that using the Spam button would also classify that message for having to be moved to Spam.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
Although the email address plays a small role while classifying messages, it is mostly the message text which is used for classifying messages.
[Android Apps and Games] heinhuiz:
So if I want to use classification to automatically move messages I mark as spam I have to do what?

Currently I have checked Classify new messages checked in the Inbox, and Classify new messages and Automatically move classified messages... checked in the Junk folder. Still these messages are not automatically moved to Junk upon receipt. Should I move them manually instead of using the Spam button?
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
Moving messages into the spam folder, independent of the way, will train the message classifier.

it seems to me that the message classifier "thinks" the messages are not distinguishing enough. If you open/expand a message, you'll find 'Log' in the horizontal three-dots menu, which includes message classifier logging, which includes the matching percentages. What does this say?
[Android Apps and Games] heinhuiz:
Don't have an example available now, because I tend to purge the spam folder regularly. Would that influence the classification? I'll keep an eye on it anyhow, thanks for the explanation.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
Deleting messages (other than trashing messages) won't train the message classifier.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
The average Play store rating just went below the level I had set as a lower limit for myself.

Edit: I am spending a lot of time to make FairEmail a perfect app. I have implemented hundreds of feature requests, but there are so many people who rate 1 star after having looked 1 minute at the app. This is pretty frustrating and I think I don't deserve this. This is why I had set a limit for myself. The average rating has been going down steadily past weeks and it isn't going up again. Therefore there is only one conclusion left: I should reduce the effort I am putting into this project accordingly. It was finished a year ago anyway.

The app will keep being maintained and supported, but I am considering to reduce the time I put into support, a few hours each and every day, too.
[Android Apps and Games] nadir husain:
As one of the very early users of FE I am truly sorry for this. On a personal level I would like to thank Marcel for the support and help he has given to me over the past 3 years. I have asked him some very stupid and inane questions . In return he has treated me with respect and kindness. I will always be indebted to him for everything he has taught me. Be well and be happy Marcel. Thanks!
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
I am not going away, Nadir, but I need to balance things.
[Android Apps and Games] mkasimd:
While talking about spam, I receive spam with a malformed FROM header, almost one each day. Outlook/Hotmail fails to recognize quite obvious red flags indicating spam.

Then I thought pressing the spam button and adding a rule in FairEmail would at least make things better client-side.

Since the FROM is formatted of the type

FROM: "John Doe", <someaddress@example.com>

FairEmail considers the domain "null" (which maybe isn't even wrong). But when I block the "null" domain, it doesn't filter other mails with similarly malformed TO headers. Is there a way for blocking "null" domains resulting all mails from senders with no email address (e.g. John Doe has no address in above example, but there's somehow a second? sender with an address)
[Android Apps and Games] nadir husain:
I understand! As always do what makes u happy!
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
Can you please send me the raw message file of an example message?
[Android Apps and Games] mkasimd:
Just did, but I encountered with an even weirder problem. Details are in the mail.

Just checked it with a completely other mail sent as attachment, couldn't replicate the same weird behavior. So, the attachment issue was probably some edge case you don't need to look into any further.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
I have sent you a test version. Please let me know if it works better.
[Android Apps and Games] jmh2002:
Even if FairEmail was rated 10 stars you should still do this and find the right balance in life.

Because yes we all want your great level of support, but more importantly none of us want a burnt out, upset, and disillusioned developer - that's not helpful to you personally, or your family, and therefore also not helpful to us either because that often results in projects getting abandoned.

In an earlier big post of mine I did mention a suggestion of removing the app from the Play Store if reviews and ratings there become unmanageable, and keeping it on GitHub, F-Droid, etc, to filter out the 'tyre kicker' type everyday users (not sure if that translates for everyone - people who go to look and test drive cars with no real intention of buying them) who (rightly or wrongly - doesn't matter) simply don't appreciate the app's advantages and 'raison d'etre'.

Is that something that you would consider? Or do you really want / need this app to be in the Play Store?

In any case, cheers and thanks for all you do Marcel, it's most appreciated (y)
[Android Apps and Games] nadir husain:
Very well said!
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
Your thought is my thought, although removing from the Play store isn't an option because about 98% of the people install from the Play store and therefore removing from the Play store would basically mean terminating the project.

A recent example of the harshness of people:

This was after having offered to help configure the app and it is only about the appearance of the app. Something like a 3 star rating would have been more reasonable.

The underlying question is why would I put a lot of effort into supporting the app if I get this?
[Android Apps and Games] fraschi51:
You know the answer: You can't make everybody happy.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
That's not untrue, but the point is that too many people are harsh and unreasonable. I am sure if you look around you, you'll see.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
Version 1.1791 is available on GitHub now and in the Play store test program after Google's approval.

Changelog/download:

https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/releases

This version fixes a critical bug causing always resending messages on replying if always downloading headers was enabled. Therefore, it is strongly advised to update.
[Android Apps and Games] mkasimd:
You and most of us, your users, love your data minimalism and design minimalism / functional design. But some won't.

imagine everyone switching from Windows full of pre-installed bloatware (like One Note, Office Tools, Cortana, telemetry collection, etc.) to a Linux distro which has solely the absolutely necessary day to day tools included. Many of them will start complaining about the OS not being user-friendly.

That's what's happening with the Play Store Reviews complaining about the design. They want some awesome graphics (even if it doesn't help functionality and waste resources only), annoying "welcome aboard"-assistant (swipeable first time wizard with a how-to", and of course with data collection that lets your app "customize on the user's needs" after collecting personal data en masse and analyzing their behavior, etc.

Obviously, that's not how FairEmail works, and that's exactly the reason many of the 5* voters use FairEmail and will keep using it. Making people understand that isn't an easy task as it seems, though..
[Android Apps and Games] heinhuiz:
You should also consider the fact that - due to the nature of your app - many people will never give a rating no matter how happy they are with FairEmail, simply because they don't have a Google account, don't use the Play Store and/or don't want to place any review on the net, out of privacy concerns. You can easily imagine that those would all have been 5-star reviews - after all these people are your #1 audience - but you will never see them.
[Android Apps and Games] deechte:
I've said it before Marcel, but you shouldn't care. You'll never be happy or satisfied if you let that depend on others. Those are things you create yourself, you should look for them inside yourself, not outside. Maybe there are some negative reviews, but your app has 4.8 stars atm. That's just perfect. Any app that has 4.8 I trust right away. Heck, the same goes for reviews of holiday locations, physical products, internet shops, if they score 4.8 they must be really really good and I'd go/buy directly. Just don't look at *every* single review. That will give you peace of mind. I've even seen you begging for 5 stars at reviews of people that gave 4 stars. That's just embarrassing man. For some people 4 is just really good. 5 is just for when they get blown away by something extraordinary.

4.8 stars atm. 4.8. That's all. The rest isn't important.

And frankly, as a supporter, buyer and 5 star reviewer of your app, I'm getting quiet annoyed by every round of complaints, "please renew your 5 star reviews" and "please downvote the 1star reviews of the bullies" requests. The people here are your actual supporters and deserve better than a weekly dose of whining.

Sorry to bring it to you this harsh. My previous advises had been milder. But your only reaction was that's easy to say, you don't read the mean things they write about me. You need to grow a thicker skin or simply don't read what you can't handle.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
This forum is about the only place I can write about my frustrations, but if this is offending you, I will stop with it.
[Android Apps and Games] M66B:
Unfortunately, the reply/resend problem wasn't completely fixed, which is why version 1.1792 is available on GitHub now and in the Play store test program after Google's approval (hopefully soon).

Changelog/download:

https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/releases
[Android Apps and Games] fraschi51:
Just as @deechte advised you not to read all the reviews in the Playstore and let them get to you, he can "read over" your frustration postings here and not get upset about it. It is *always* the question, how far someone what from any external things / statements something for themselves makes.

And you probably wouldn't have the good Playstore rating if you didn't keep posting about it here either.
[Android Apps and Games] mkasimd:
IMHO, it's quite okay to let off steam. If you don't, it will probably just worsen in terms of your own health. How you let off steam, be it here or some other place doing something else, that's something you have to know for yourself.