Labels applied to conversations vs. messages, and consequences thereof
Andrew Ingraham
with Labels attached to them so I could see what's left that doesn't have a
Label. Of course this means a long string of "-label:foo" type terms in
the search field. (I have many Labels!)
As I did this, I noticed the search results started showing conversations
that DID have some of the labels I had asked it not to show me. That was
odd. I double-checked those search terms to make sure I specified them
correctly, even made sure to observe upper/lower case (though it shouldn't
matter).
What I did see in common among some of them, was that these conversations
that slipped through the search filter contained messages I had sent (to
various maillists like this one).
Now what makes those unique, I wondered?
Well, both the message I sent and the one that came back via the maillist
would have gone through Google's servers. Only the one that came back,
would have matched the Filter parameters and would have picked up a Label.
However, Gmail trashes that one (THANKS, GOOGLE!), because it is a close
(or maybe not so close!) match to the outgoing message. So the message that
is left in the conversation, is the sent one which itself has no Label, not
the received one via the maillist which would have had the Label.
This, perhaps, is why that conversation shows up even when I ask Gmail not
to show conversations with that Label. It shows that conversation as having
the Label, and yet one of the messages in it doesn't, and apparently Gmail's
search function sees that.
If you ask me, this is a really stupid way of doing things.
And the result is that Gmail's search capability is rather seriously flawed.
Am I wrong about this?
We keep hearing about the power of Google's search technology, and how
searching in Gmail is so much better than sliced bread. And yet they can't
even do this correctly.
So sorry about the long-winded message.
Andy
Zack (Doc)
messages who don't have the label), but having a message not be
labeled is as much your fault as it is Google's. I have many/most of
my outgoing messages labeled. It's a matter of carefully choosing
filters that match what's really important.
And I disagree, slightly, with your interpretation of what happens to
messages sent to a mailing list. If you check a sent message, you'll
find headers, often in agreement with what you'd get on an incoming
message. While it's true you're never displayed the incoming message
since it's a match (however closely or loosely that's defined) to the
sent message, it's not completely "trashed", just not displayed again.
I don't see the detection of unlabeled messages within conversations
as a flaw in the search engine. If anything, it could be part of the
realization of some people's suggestions. There's the check-box
"Filter or label a message within a conversation", which would allow
this choice when labeling, even though you sort-of can now, just not
consciously. If we can label individually, we'd have to be able to
search individually.
Andrew Ingraham
> messages who don't have the label), but having a message not be
> labeled is as much your fault as it is Google's.
Perhaps, yes. But this is mail to/from a maillist, so I am filtering on the
List-Id: in the header to determine eligibility for the Label. Now I see
that that's not good enough.
> If you check a sent message, you'll
> find headers, often in agreement with what you'd get on an incoming
> message.
But it has no List-Id line!
> While it's true you're never displayed the incoming message
> since it's a match (however closely or loosely that's defined) to the
> sent message, it's not completely "trashed", just not displayed again.
So where is it, then? If Gmail hangs on to it, why don't they let ME see
it? Why keep it, taking up server space, when I can never see it? That
happens to be the copy of the message I want to keep and display, not
necessarily the one I sent (since it's not quite "complete" yet without
those extra bits that the maillist adds to it, just like everyone else on
the list sees).
> I don't see the detection of unlabeled messages within conversations
> as a flaw in the search engine.
The problem really boils down to the messages-vs-conversations issue, the
fact that Gmail doesn't (yet) let you separate or rearrange messages once
they are in a conversation. Here, Gmail forces this message (that I don't
want to keep) into a conversation, rejects the message that has the label,
and gives you no way to fix or change that. You can't display the labels of
individual messages, neither can you attach or change those labels on an
individual message basis. You can only see the labels for the whole
conversation. And you are forever stuck with conversations that both have a
label and simultaneously don't. (Illogical.)
Then when you search on a label (or lack of one), it returns not only the
message that matches that criterion, but all the other messages in the
conversation that don't! That is just plain wrong.
Simply the fact that searching for -label:foo can return a single result
which HAS the label foo, is nonsensical.
If labels are really properties of messages not conversations, then we need
the ability to see (and change) the relationship between labels and
messages, not just conversations!
> There's the check-box
> "Filter or label a message within a conversation", which would allow
> this choice when labeling
Where do you find that check-box?? Is that a suggestion for improvement?
Andy
Zack (Doc)
these messages. I subscribe to a LOT of Google and Yahoo groups, so
my filter is simply "to:{yahoogroups.com googlegroups.com}" and it
applies the same label to all of them "Group Mails". If I needed just
the "GMail-Users" messages once in that label, I'd just search for
that. I wanted to avoid search paralysis.
I do have one list that's not on Yahoo or Google that I use list-ID
for, but I also search it's TO for completeness.
"{listid:"<ccielab.groupstudy.com>" to:com...@groupstudy.com}" This
not only catches my outgoing posts to the group, but also weird posts
where people didn't address the list correctly (You're supposed to TO
the list, but some people oddly BCC the list).
My solution for finding the odd message that's unlabeled as part of a
conversation that I have labeled (at least every other message is
labeled), is to then label the conversation. When you apply labels
manually, it DOES apply them to every message in the conversation. So
the one that was missing the "foo" will now have it. It's an extra
step, and it's annoying, but I only encounter it when someone takes a
thread from the group and replies directly. Some people don't follow
the netiquette of replying to the list, and they'll send to me (and
others, I see Fuzzy, Nick and Ryan getting them all the time). These
messages miss the filter whether it's for List-ID or TO. This won't
change no matter what I try to do with filters, or GMail allows me to
do with messages.
Yes, it's on the suggestion page, along with "Ability to add or remove
messages from conversations" under the checkbox for "Conversation View
changes".