Re: expunge emails on gmail and locally

[jrun <dar...@gm...>]

On Fri, Sep 24, 2021 at 07:26:22AM +0530, Vikas Rawal wrote:
> On my local machine, I use neomutt, and deletion simply adds a notmuch tag
> "deleted". Is there a way to make gmail understand notmuch tag and expunge
> those mails?

fresh in my head since i ran into this recently...

before anyting, one thing that might matter here; i only sync All Mail:
Far :gmailusrname-remote:"[Gmail]/All Mail"


now from `man 1 mbsync`: (emphasise is mine)
Make sure your IMAP server does not auto - expunge deleted messages...
*Specifically*, Gmail needs to be configured not to do it. [gmail-settings]

[gmail-settings]: at gmail's web interface;
Gear Icon > See all settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP:

1. Auto-Expunge off - Wait for the client to update the server.
2. When a message is marked as deleted and expunged from the last visible IMAP folder:
  Archive the message (default)
* Move the message to the Bin
  Immediately delete the message forever

`man 1 mbsync`:
By default mbsync will not delete any messages - deletions are propagated by
marking the messages as deleted [DELETE] on the remote store.

mbsync's built-in trash functionality relies on mbsync doing the expunging of
deleted messages. This is the case when it propagates deletions of previously
propagated messages, and the trash is on the target store (typically your IMAP
server).

/* this the part that matters to neomutt and notmuch tags: */
`man 1 mbsync`:
However, when you intend mbsync to trash messages which were not propagated yet,
the MUA must mark the messages as deleted without expunging them (e.g.,  Mutt's
maildir_trash  option). [neomutt]

[neomutt]: note s/purge/delete/ ; i.e. wait for isync to pick up messages
neomutt marked as deleted and i guess send the DELETE command to the imap
server. i guess purge has different meaning in [neo]mutt since mutt can act as
MDA (isync is an MDA) and i guess purge will directly remove the message from
Maildir and won't give isync time to see what happened and act accordingly.

neomuttrc:
# macro index,pager D "<purge-thread><sync-mailbox>"
macro index,pager D "<delete-thread><vfolder-window-reset>"

/**
* this never worked for me, perhaps Oswald would be able to shed some light on
* this. so the RECOMMENDED way is to actually have auto-trashing ON - i.e. don't
* do [gmail-settings] ?
* i have never had lock with this on propagating deletions at Near and/or Far
*/
`man 1 mbsync`:
If your server supports auto-trashing (as Gmail does), it is probably a good
idea to rely on that instead of mbsync's trash functionality.  If you do that,
and intend  to  synchronize the trash like other mailboxes, you should not use
mbsync's Trash option at all.


- jrun

[DELETE]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3501#section-6.3.4