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Deleting emails

softrader
Dabbler
Posts: 16
Registered: ‎04-12-2008

Deleting emails

I've just logged on to my business account through Webmail and was informed that there were 72 messages. There were about 40 spam messages, so I clicked the 'Select all' icon and dumped them in the Spam folder. This should have left 32 messages, but there were none. Annoyingly, I knew there was a customer order from a previous session waiting to be processed on Monday which has also disappeared.
Does the 'Select all' button normally included messages that are not displayed?
24 REPLIES 24
softrader
Dabbler
Posts: 16
Registered: ‎04-12-2008

Re: Deleting emails

An addendum: this problem may be related to the previous thread (Roundcube not showing full contents of mailbox).
Anotherone
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Re: Deleting emails

No, it isn't related to the other thread.
If you select the Junk folder, you should find all the messages there and be able to recover the ones that you want by marking them as "Not Spam" and they will go back to the Inbox. I suggest you do it that way as otherwise the Cloudmark Anti-spam servers may treat all message from those senders as spam if you just move them back to the Inbox.
Select All is indeed select "All" in your current folder, read or unread, visible or not visible. If you hover over the other icons, there is one for the "Current page", "Unread", "Invert (the selection)" and "None" (a deselect).
Anotherone
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Re: Deleting emails

@Bob Pullen
Hi Bob, I've just had another look at the user guide and see there is no mention of these icons at the bottom of the page. Could something be added and I'd suggest that there is a red warning that "Select All" does select All messages in the current folder. Thanks.
spraxyt
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Re: Deleting emails

Quote from: Anotherone
If you select the Junk folder, you should find all the messages there and be able to recover the ones that you want by marking them as "Not Spam" and they will go back to the Inbox. I suggest you do it that way as otherwise the Cloudmark Anti-spam servers may treat all message from those senders as spam if you just move them back to the Inbox.

Whilst marking them as "not spam" should move them back to the Inbox I think doing that could have a disastrous effect on the user's spam-reporting reputation - I don't know how the Cloudmark system reacts to "not spam" reports when (I assume) it didn't regard them as spam in the first place. (This assumes spam filtering is turned on.)
It isn't clear whether the 40 spam messages mentioned in the opening post were tagged spam or not, and if they were I assume that is the choice made in Manage My Mail for spam handling (again assuming spam filtering is turned on).
If spam filtering is turned on and the spam messages were not detected then marking (at least some of) them as spam would help train the filter and move those messages to the spam/junk folder. Remaining messages could be moved using standard multi-line selection and move techniques. I don't expect Cloudmark takes any notice of which folder the Mail Transfer Agent and the user puts or moves messages into.
David
softrader
Dabbler
Posts: 16
Registered: ‎04-12-2008

Re: Deleting emails

I'm trying very hard to think why anyone thought a user would want to delete emails he didn't know he had. I happened to spot the discrepancy between the number of emails on display and the number of reported emails received. Had the reported number been just over 40, I would never have noticed and, I suggest, nor would anyone else.
@Anotherone: This is a monumental and hidden failure in interface design - user guides are usually the resort employed after a user has had problems. That a 'Select all' button selects unseen and unseeable items (I haven't found a way of seeing the second tranche of messages) is counter-intuitive and I can think of no similar behaviour in any software package.
It's also strange that icons that have no intrinsic visual meaning are used in the first place: if you roll over them you get a word or two of (incomplete) explanation - why not just show the words in the first place and save the programming overhead? Update the manual by all means, but it's not going to compensate for a poor interface.
@spraxyt: Unfortunately, I've had to use the same email addresses for more than a decade, so I get a lot of spam, some of which can't be filtered automatically without compromising efficiency. It's not a big deal: I highlight the obvious and click the 'Mark as spam' button and it all goes away. Looking in the Junk folder (why two expressions for the same thing? As far as I can see, only spam gets moved to this folder) there are only the 40 messages that I consciously deleted. Presumable, the remaining 32 unseen messages and the message I had seen and hoped to retain have gone forever - or at least until tomorrow's repeats.
Anotherone
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Re: Deleting emails

The mail should still be in your Junk or Deleted Items folder for you to recover unless you have altered your default settings,  or unless you emptied the folder without checking its contents.
jelv
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Re: Deleting emails

I have a mailbox that I just use to get emails from Freecycle. I look down the topic titles and read any that look of interest. I then select all and delete them. 40 is plenty to display per page and when I do delete there may be way more than 40 - and I do want it to behave the way it does.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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Anotherone
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Re: Deleting emails

@spraxyt
What you didn't mentioned is that Cloudmark responds to being told messages aren't Spam.
It rather depends on whether they were dumped in the Junk (Spam) folder using the "Mark as Spam" button. However, I think all the stuff about Manage My Mail is irrelevant (explanation in a moment).
If the "Mark as Spam" button was used  
Quote from: user
The message will be moved to the Junk folder and a copy forwarded to our email security partners (Cloudmark) to help improve our spam filter.

 then marking a message as Not Spam is essential if it was marked as spam accidentally in the first place.
But additionally I see no problem telling Cloudmark that a particular message is Not Spam whether it had identified it as Spam or not, how can it possibly have a "disastrous" effect on the user's spam reporting reputation, it's only looking at the reputation of the mail being passed though it. Besides which if it responded badly to being told particular messages were not spam when they weren't identified as such in the first place then there is something seriously wrong with Cloudmark which Plusnet should address.
All mail passes through Cloudmark [quote author="Spam Protection Advanced Guide"]Before an email gets anywhere near your inbox it'll be scanned by Cloudmark
Quote
If an email is sent from a mailserver with a bad Cloudmark Sender Intelligence reputation then it'll be rejected and bounced back to the sender. Email that passes this first check is scanned and given a spam rating. What happens next depends on the settings you choose on the Spam tab in Manage My Mail.
And that is why the Manage My Mail settings are irrelevant, Mail is rated by Cloudmark irrespective.
softrader
Dabbler
Posts: 16
Registered: ‎04-12-2008

Re: Deleting emails

I admit it - some of these errors are of my own making - I'm expecting Webmail and my standard mail client to work in the same way and, of course, they don't.
I found the 400-odd messages in my Junk folder and found them missing items. The instruction was in the last place I looked: the lower right-hand corner. (I mean this literally - in Western culture, the last place anyone looks on a page is there, which is why no messages should ever be placed in the lower right-hand corner.
@Anotherone: No, I never empty any folder. The only default setting I've changed is the placement of a 'signature above the quote', a setting that Webmail routinely ignores, so I don't have a great deal of faith in the other settings.
Discussion of Spam/Not spam is off topic: the discussion is to highlight where Webmail interface and behaviour could be improved (but I appreciate the pointers).
Anotherone
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Re: Deleting emails

I was a little surprised at your first remark in your previous response, I would have thought it was obvious that all the mail in the Inbox (or any folder) might not be displayed if the list filled the screen! But moving on from that -
Quote
This is a monumental and hidden failure in interface design - user guides are usually the resort employed after a user has had problems.
Couldn't disagree more. If a user thinks themselves smart enough to use something without reading a guide or manual, they should take extra care and double check what they are doing. I used to think I was smart enough to permanently delete items with out putting them in a Deleted Items folder - I soon learnt after deleting a few things that I hadn't intended.
Quote
It's also strange that icons that have no intrinsic visual meaning are used in the first place: if you roll over them you get a word or two of (incomplete) explanation - why not just show the words in the first place and save the programming overhead?
Whilst I don't disagree about the visual meaning of some icons, the tooltips when you hover over each give adequate information. It's not practical to use words to label every Icon/radio button, there simply is not enough room unless you use a type face so small you'd need a magnifying glass to read it.
Your best bet, if you have ideas about improvements to Roundcube, would be to go over to www.roundcube.net and put forward your ideas there.
As far as the spam/not spam being off-topic, you were the one who said you'd accidentally removed some messages as Spam. As you hadn't specified how you'd done it, I felt it important to say how best to recover them with out jeopardising future wanted mail being treated as spam not just for your benefit but for anyone else reading the topic who may not have appreciated the significance. I also felt it necessary to clarify the situation as spraxyt's response I felt clouded the issue (no pun intended). However I would agree that further discussion is not necessary.
As far as Personal settings go (I can't remember all the defaults) I have the following -
Time format 07:30  Date format 24-07-2012 ;  I have not selected "Pretty dates" ; Rows per page 40
I do not have the Preview pane selected; On request for return receipt is set at  "ask each time" ; Expand message threads is "all threads" & Check for new messages is "every 1 minute(s)" ;
Composing messages - No boxes ticked apart from the bottom one "When replying remove original signature from message" is ticked. Others -
"on reply to HTML message only" ; "every 5 minutes" ; "Full RFC 2231 (Thunderbird)" ; "start new message above original" ; "always" (add signature).  I have no problem with either choice of  "above the quote" or "below the quote" for the signature being placed as selected.
Displaying messages - Display HTML ticked ; Display attached images below the message ticked ; After message delete/move display the next message is not ticked
Both  "ISO-8859-1 (Western Europe)" and  "from known senders" are selected.
On Server settings - no boxes are ticked.  Other sections, no changes from default.
It's important to click "Save" on each page before moving away.
I don't have any problems with display format/layout or message list discrepancies etc., so whether the above information is of any use to those that have such such problems, I hope that helps.
softrader
Dabbler
Posts: 16
Registered: ‎04-12-2008

Re: Deleting emails

Quote from: Anotherone
I was a little surprised at your first remark in your previous response, I would have thought it was obvious that all the mail in the Inbox (or any folder) might not be displayed if the list filled the screen!

It's not at all obvious - the list, as it appeared on my screen, was in a scrollable panel; there is no immediate visual clue as to how many messages are being displayed. I know there are 40 because I counted them; the indicator is in the less-used bottom-right corner.
Quote
Quote
This is a monumental and hidden failure in interface design - user guides are usually the resort employed after a user has had problems.
Couldn't disagree more. If a user thinks themselves smart enough to use something without reading a guide or manual, they should take extra care and double check what they are doing. I used to think I was smart enough to permanently delete items with out putting them in a Deleted Items folder - I soon learnt after deleting a few things that I hadn't intended.

I was just finishing a carefully reasoned response when my session timed out and an hour's work was lost without warning, so here's a resumé.
I've been an educational software designer/producer for more than 30 years. My fundamental rule is that if my end users run into a problem, it's my failure and not theirs, so software is designed and refined until the intuitive value is at its highest and ambiguity is removed.
The term WYSIWYG is no longer so common, simply because it it is conventionally accepted that what you see is what you get. What I saw was a list of spam emails. What I expected to get when I selected all was for just those I could see to be selected - just the way that SquirrelMail worked. I still contend that most users would assume the same and that invisible messages would not be included. If I do CTRL-A now, I just select my text in the edit panel, nothing more.
Quote from: Anotherone
Hi Bob, I've just had another look at the user guide and see there is no mention of these icons at the bottom of the page. Could something be added and I'd suggest that there is a red warning that "Select All" does select All messages in the current folder.

So I could have checked and double-checked as much as I liked - it wouldn't have made any difference.
Even after 30 years' of software development, designers are still throwing everything at the screen without thinking thinking of the learning curve or possible user reaction/non-reaction to what is presented. For example, the reason Apple products are so successful is because the HCI has always been part of the design process from the outset and not tacked on at the end of the project. iPads and Android tablets do the same thing, but the iPad is more intuitive and is arguably a better user experience - the hardware is of minor importance. The same approach could and should be applied to all software projects.
Apologies, it's still long-winded, but I always expect developers to share my philosophical approach.
I'm often disappointed.
Anotherone
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Re: Deleting emails

Well I'm going to disagree with you on 3 points.
Quote
What I expected to get when I selected all was for just those I could see to be selected - just the way that SquirrelMail worked.

You are incorrect - when you "Toggle all" in Squirrel Mail, this is the equivalent of Select the Current Page in Roundcube. In Squirrel Mail in my message list only 18 messages are visible, I have the "Number of messages per page" set at 50 in Squirrel Mail, "Toggle All" selects all 50 visible or not! Further more you can make the forum "edit window" larger than the screen will display (drag that bottom RH corner), if it is full of text, a <Ctrl>A will select all, visible or not. If I put the cursor anywhere else on this page and do <Ctrl>A, it will select All the text on the page, visible or not. I think I've given enough examples.
Quote
the indicator is in the less-used bottom-right corner
Whilst it appears in the top RH corner in Squirrel Mail, it also appears in the bottom RH corner. An assortment of information appears in the bottom RH corner of the status bar in 3 browsers that I use, and other information in this corner appears in a number of apps, never mind the Windows task bar with all the Tray Icons - I don't understand why you think the bottom RH corner is "less-used".
Quote
So I could have checked and double-checked as much as I liked - it wouldn't have made any difference.
When I said I couldn't disagree more about your statement "user guides are usually the resort employed after a user has had problems" this was a disagreement about the principal that you stated, not the specifics here. Indeed the user guide does fall short on the specifics which is why I've raised a point for Bob Pullen of Plusnet. That doesn't detract from my remark that if you are going to use something without consulting a guide or manual (or indeeed if something is not covered) you should take extra care and double check. I'm surprised you do not teach these principals.
I don't see any point in continuing this discussion, whilst I don't disagree with your comment about WYSIWYG, I don't think anyone has claimed that either Squirrel Mail or Roundcube fall into that category - indeed neither do.
In both, it's a case of (and sorry to be blunt) RTFM, a term that's been around for just as long, and as I said earlier you'd be best suggesting improvements to Roundcube, to Roundcube themselves at www.roundcube.net where they will no doubt get the attention they need.
softrader
Dabbler
Posts: 16
Registered: ‎04-12-2008

Re: Deleting emails

While loyalty is to be commended, when it becomes entrenched to the point where no other point of view can be appreciated, it becomes a liability.
In my company, RTFM is an admission of failure and is viewed as the first step on the road to commercial suicide. If the users don't have a good experience with a product, they will go elsewhere - just look what's happening with Talk Talk's customers.
I'm finding Gmail a much better proposition and I find I'm using it more and more.
Your advice on contacting Roundcube is wrong: this is the medium for problem solving - PlusNet is my supplier, the organisation with the legal responsibility for its products, and they promise to do me proud.
jelv
Seasoned Hero
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Re: Deleting emails

Plusnet does take full responsibility for the service it has contracted to provide - an internet connection. It also takes responsibility for sending emails and for safely receiving and storing emails in your mailbox. Webmail is a freebie for your convenience, if you don't like it there are plenty of alternatives you can use to access your mailbox.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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