Re: [Evolution] New user - please clarify Expunge

[James Freer <jessejazza3 uk gmail com>]

On Sat, 2019-07-20 at 18:06 +0200, Ralf Mardorf via evolution-list wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Jul 2019 09:50:04 -0400, Paul Smith wrote:
> > this list is for _Evolution_, not Ubuntu
>
> The original request is not regarding Ubuntu, it's a valid Evolution
> related request

Thank you Sir for your kind words - despite other replies I thought it was a
perfectly reasonable request as certain mail clients are designed to behave in
different ways.

>  "I want to automatically delete messages over 24 months. Went into
>  Folder > Properties > AutoArchive (selecting delete old messages over
>  24 months). That marks them for deletion but when I did a folder
>  Expunge it did not seem to clear them. So I am wondering how that is
>  to work. [I put all messages into the All Mail folder (rather than
>  inbox)]. Maybe there is a better method."

Well I have found a solution but also seem to have found a bug (maybe) that
other folk don't know about.... posting and reporting such things is the whole
point of a mailing list.

Initially just to tidy up one minor issue so it's clear to those who have never
used gmail.
"[I put all messages into the All Mail folder (rather than inbox)]."
This was a bit confusing for those who don't know gmail. As someone said gmail
uses labels and to make that clearer still there is one box for mail (All Mail)
and other boxes receive mail that is labelled. e.g. a Sent email will be in the
Sent box as a label has been applied but it will also be in the All Mail box
(along with Spam, Rubbish/Bin, Starred etc.... which also have their own
associated labels). They also have a label Inbox so all mail shows up there - 
unless in gmail settings you enter the option to immediately Archive mail which
seems the best thing to do (go into settings and check box "if message does not
contain" a certain word (any junk word) e.g. 'qhwtbdgefuinguthebtydkcng'
Archive it. That works fine to save manually archiving which is a pain....
don't know why they bothered with the Inbox but there we are. All worked fine
for the last 20 years that I've had gmail (tried aol and yahoo once but still
think gmail is the best provider....) until the last 6 months when they
revamped the UI. The html version works irregularly with a browser (I use 
Firefox) as it often only shows one screen of messages.

In evolution like all mail clients I looked up how to delete older unwanted
mail. For each email address folder went to View > clic Show deleted messages.
I went to Folder > Properties > AutoArchive (select over 24 months), clic
delete old messages. Looking in All Mail one sees the deleted email and
proceeds to Folder > Expunge... and the message at the bottom saying Expunging
folder etc... seems to work ok. BUT when one scrolls through mail, deleted mail
appears at the top or bottom I noticed (this does seem a bit odd). So either I
had such a lot of mail it couldn't cope and perhaps can only delete so many
records at a time... but I tried it several times and I still had deleted mail.
I manually selected all the deleted mail in folder All mail and dumped them in
the Rubbish folder.

With the thought that 'Delete old messages' was not the right selection I tried
clic 'move old messages to' select from window folder Rubbish BUT one cannot
clic OK to close the window.

Then tried as above but selecting the Spam folder and clic OK to close the
window. That works fine as gmail deletes Spam every 30 days automatically
(think that is the same with most providers).

I thought my post was reasonable and no one has commented on the method. I've
found a solution which may be the best way of doing things but the Expunge
should work on a folder.

james