I’ve just started using Runbox and have imported the emails from my GSuite account using IMAP during the night. Currently I have about 30k emails or so in Runbox. So I have some questions about organizing the emails:
I find that moving around between the folders seems sluggish. If keeping the synchronization on, I find that the emails shown in a folder can be completely different from emails shown in that folder earlier. Or the folder will appear completely blank. I tried turning off synchronization, and it seemed to improve. But should I synchronize the email folders? And how can I best synchronize many emails in multiple folders? Do I really need to keep the folder open in the browser (so that the “Synchronizing X of Y emails” message is visible)? Isn’t this something that could be done in the background?
When viewing folder containing many emails in unsynchronized mode, I find that emails are not listed according to received timestamp, but will vary in received timestamp (first newer emails, then older, then newer again etc.). Is this just how it is, or will this be corrected after a while?
Why is there a “Toggle message read” functionality rather than a “Mark all messages read” functionality? If I have hundreds of emails where emails here and there are unread, I’d like for all of them to be unread. But I then have to select all the unread manually and set them read. Otherwise if I mark all emails and toggle the read state, the read emails will become unread and the unread will become read. I don’t see the logic in this functionality. I’d rather see that all messages are set to be read regardless of their prior state (read or unread).
How can I select all emails in a folder, including those not visible on the screen? The “Check all” button only selects those visible, so I have to scroll down and click it again and again to select all.
From the problems described in your first two questions it sounds like you may need to allow more time for the initial synchronization process to finish. Once this is completed (by automatically downloading one or more index files to your device) your local index should be kept up-to-date with only minor intermittent updates that are barely noticeable.
This process will depend on the size of the account, and how often you log into Runbox. On a personal and secure device we recommend that you use the “Stay logged in” option on the login page to avoid being automatically logged out for security reasons when your session times out.
We may change the “Toggle message read” behavior as you suggest, but in the meantime it might be helpful to use the “Unread only” option in the message list menu (top right) to only show unread messages so that these can be selected more easily.
Regarding the selection of all messages in a folder we have an existing issue for this that we hope to resolve in the near future: https://github.com/runbox/runbox7/issues/61
Thank you for the reply. Regarding the indexation of the emails, why is this feature so visible in the web interface? What is the need for the user to be able to control this? Shouldn’t this just be handled in the background, making the web interface as quick and clean as possible? I’m asking since it strikes me as a very technical option and an added layer of complexity, and I don’t see any benefits of providing the user with a control over this. Kind of like having a knob for adjusting a car’s idle RPM on the dashboard of the consumer production model, if you get my meaning.
The reason the indexing controls are visible is twofold:
The index synchronization functionality is quite innovative and the listing/searching speed it provides in the app is facilitated by combining several new technologies. While we do recommend all users utilize the indexing synchronization, we wanted to provide a visible fallback in case it did not function as intended on a given device or network.
There is a privacy aspect to storing the index locally, and we wanted to ensure that the user stays in control of all their data – including being able to delete it from their device by stopping index synchronization. You can find more information about local index storage in the Runbox 7 FAQ.
In short, the indexing button is more like a turbocharger control than an idle air control actuator.
