reading the "All Mail" folder on Gmail over IMAP

[nicholas]

I'm reading and writing gmail fine, and can see all folders...except for
one:

nicholas@mordor:~$
nicholas@mordor:~$ grep gmail .pinerc.gmail
user-domain=gmail.com
smtp-server=smtp.gmail.com:587/tls/user=saunders...@gmail.com
inbox-path={imap.gmail.com:993/ssl/novalidate-cert/
user=saunders...@gmail.com}INBOX
incoming-folders=saunders...@gmail.com {imap.gmail.com:993/
novalidate-cert/ssl/user=saunders...@gmail.com}
folder-collections="saunders...@gmail.com" {imap.gmail.com:993/ssl/
user=saunders...@gmail.com}[],
patterns-roles=LIT:pattern="/NICK=gmail/FLDTYPE=ANY" action="/ROLE=1/
FROM=saunders...@gmail.com/RTYPE=NC/FTYPE=NC/CTYPE=NC"
nicholas@mordor:~$



How can I get the "All Mail" folder listed?




thanks,

Nick

[Adam H. Kerman]

nicholas <saunders...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I'm reading and writing gmail fine, and can see all folders...except for
>one:

Oh my gawd

DO NOT post your credentials to a public network.

>:~$
>:~$ grep gmail .pinerc.gmail

grep isn't helpful because it doesn't pull the value, which is likely to
have continuation lines. grep doesn't understand continuation lines.

>user-domain=gmail.com
>smtp-server=smtp.gmail.com:587/tls/user=[deleted]

Eduardo has always told us that the protocol implies the port, so don't
use both. I'm using SSL.

smtp.gmail.com/ssl/user=[deleted]

>inbox-path={imap.gmail.com:993/ssl/novalidate-cert/user=[deleted]}INBOX

I'm using

imap.gmail.com/ssl/user=[deleted]

Again, if you specify the protocol, don't specify the port. DO NOT use
novalidate-cert, which is for self-signed certificates. The Google
certificate should validate. Yeah yeah, it's technically self signed
since Google owns it, heh.

>incoming-folders=[deleted] {imap.gmail.com:993/novalidate-cert/ssl/user=[deleted]}

Are you checking incoming servers on more than one site? If not, leave
the unset.

>folder-collections="[deleted]" {imap.gmail.com:993/ssl/user=[deleted]}[],

This should have exactly the same syntax as your inbox. The purpose of
this is to allow you to see Google tags as pseudofolders. In olden days,
the entry here required doubled brackets, gah.

>patterns-roles=LIT:pattern="/NICK=gmail/FLDTYPE=ANY" action="/ROLE=1/

>FROM=[deleted]/RTYPE=NC/FTYPE=NC/CTYPE=NC"
>nicholas@mordor:~$

Are you sending from different email addresses? That's what the Roles
command is for. This has nothing to do viewing messages in pseudofolders
in IMAP.

>How can I get the "All Mail" folder listed?

On your M Main > L List index screen, you should see the Folder Collection
you set for Gmail. You should see "[Gmail]/". Click on that. It will
display pseudofolders. Then you'll see "All Mail", which I suppose is
literally the only actual folder.

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2023-12-20 20:19, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> nicholas <saunders...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm reading and writing gmail fine, and can see all folders...except for
>> one:
>
> Oh my gawd
>
> DO NOT post your credentials to a public network.

Well... it is not that bad, only his email, which is also uses to post.
He did not include the password.

...

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Brandon Jewett-Hall]

On Wednesday, December 20, 2023 at 9:53:35 AM UTC-8, nicholas wrote:
>
> How can I get the "All Mail" folder listed?

Gmail has an IMAP visibility setting for each label. To view and modify your "All Mail" configuration, log in to your Gmail account in a browser, go to the full Settings page, select the Labels section using the upper navigation bar, look under "System Labels" and check the "Show in IMAP" setting for "All Mail".

[nicholas]

Ah, that was quite helpful. I scrolled down to [Gmail] and am able to
read it.

My e-mail is just overflowing and it seems to be this folder that's
causing the problem. The folder has too many e-mails to even sort, that
just hangs.

How would I know the number of messages in the folder? To select the
oldest messages there for backup.



Thanks,

Nick

[ni...@example.com]

On 2023-12-20, Adam H. Kerman <a...@chinet.com> wrote:
> nicholas <saunders...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I'm reading and writing gmail fine, and can see all folders...except for
>>one:
>
> Oh my gawd
>
> DO NOT post your credentials to a public network.

Fair enough

>>:~$
>>:~$ grep gmail .pinerc.gmail
>
> grep isn't helpful because it doesn't pull the value, which is likely to
> have continuation lines. grep doesn't understand continuation lines.
>
>>user-domain=gmail.com
>>smtp-server=smtp.gmail.com:587/tls/user=[deleted]
>
> Eduardo has always told us that the protocol implies the port, so don't
> use both. I'm using SSL.
>
> smtp.gmail.com/ssl/user=[deleted]

Okay, interesting, thanks.

This looks like some interesting updates.

I use the Roles only so that the from field is populated with an explicit value as Alpine seems to pickup the local user and pop that into the "from" field.



-Nick

[Adam H. Kerman]

ni...@example.com wrote:
>On 2023-12-20, Adam H. Kerman <a...@chinet.com> wrote:
>>nicholas <saunders...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>. . .

>>>How can I get the "All Mail" folder listed?

>>On your M Main > L List index screen, you should see the Folder Collection
>>you set for Gmail. You should see "[Gmail]/". Click on that. It will
>>display pseudofolders. Then you'll see "All Mail", which I suppose is
>>literally the only actual folder.

As the O.P. told you, within the settings of your Gmail account, you
must authorize access to All Mail and its pseudofolders explicitly. He
told you how to do that. I should have mentioned that.

In Gmail, deleted messages are a separate folder, not a pseudofolder
within All Mail. The purpose is to move the deleted messages out of All
Mail, holding them in another folder for 30 days, after which the system
expunges them. I can't recall if Spam is also a separate folder.
Messages live there for 30 days. I believe these defaults can be changed
in Gmail settings.

From the perspective of the IMAP user, a genuine folder versus a
pseudofolder are offered the same way.

Within alpine, enter the Deleted Messages folder and use the X Expunge
command to permanently delete a message. Within Gmail, there are
commands to empty the deleted folder.

With regard to spam messages, you'd have to be using Gmail with your
browser to unmark spam messages, which supposedly teaches Google's spam
recognition techniques. If you don't care about this, using IMAP, you
can still save a message in the Spam folder to an archived messages
folder that you maintain elsewhere.

>This looks like some interesting updates.

>I use the Roles only so that the from field is populated with an explicit value as Alpine seems to pickup the local user and pop that into the "from" field.

Roles has a huge number of features and filters based on how the message
was received and whether your email address was on To, Cc, or Bcc (in
which case it's just in ENVELOPE FROM), where it's archived, how replies
are handled, etc. It can look for a mailing list you subscribe to as
well, or Subjects can be filtered. There's a lot in this command.

It's overkill for the purpose of using exactly one email address.

An easier way would have been to set an explicit From header for a new
message or reply message in Customized Headers.