Changed read/unread behavior in Gmail

[Andy]

Recently I noticed two changes in Gmail's handling of Read/Unread
messages, and I'm looking for confirmation from others that it affects
them too and I didn't just imagine this.

Until recently, when you open a conversation where some messages have
been read, it displays starting with the first Unread message. All
older, read messages are shown collapsed into one line each. That's
how it should be.

Now, it's changed. When I open a conversation from the Inbox or All
Mail, it still works like that. But if I use a Search to find certain
messages, and then open one, it now shows every message in the thread
expanded, starting with the first one, even though it was marked Read.

This might not be so bad, but I am on a large number of e-mail lists,
many with long threads of several dozen messages, and I can't keep up
with all of them all the time. So at any moment I have several
partially-read conversations. I'd like to be able to open them, and
go right to the place where I left off.

Now I have to be careful NOT to open a thread that I found by searching for it.

Gmail didn't always work that way, did it?

And do others find this as annoying as I do?

The other thing I recently noticed, is about the "Message Sneak Peek"
Gmail Lab. It is supposed to let you "peek into a conversation
without opening it," by using your right mouse button.

This was working fine, until a few weeks ago when it suddenly started
marking the entire conversation as Read, just by using this Lab.

It's extra puzzling because one of the choices offered by the Lab, is
to mark the conversation as read; which now becomes a useless button.

And I find it annoying because I automatically lose my place in a
thread just by using Message Sneak Peek.

I reported it via the Labs Feedback option, but have seen no word (and
no fix) yet.

I just tried reporting it again, and there seems to be no way to
provide critical feedback anymore! (Gmail broke their own problem
reporting system!)

It is tempting to suggest that Gmail is getting out of control under
more and more bugs, but I probably shouldn't go there....

Regards,
Andy

[Nick Chirchirillo]

When you open a conversation that was searched for, Gmail expands the messages that matched the search criteria.  This is how it has always worked.  I just tested it out a few times, and when I searched for something that was unique in only one message of the conversation, only that message was expanded.

It is possible that when you are searching for something, the text shows up quoted in a reply, which will make Gmail think that that message is also what you are looking for.

--
Nick Chirchirillo
nickchich.com

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[Andrew Ingraham]

> When you open a conversation that was searched for, Gmail expands the
> messages that matched the search criteria.  This is how it has always
> worked.

Hmm, that's a good point. And that is what I always noticed too, when
searching for text within messages.

I guess my mind just didn't connect, that it would do the same thing
when searching for text within the Subject. In that case, every
message in the conversation matches the search criteria.

Thanks for knocking some stuck brain cells loose here!

Andy

[Sarah Hill]

Andy,
I find very much the same as you - I'd had no need to use search for several weeks; but a quick check and I find all messages in a thread opened from search are displayed as open, not collapsed.
I am experiencing the same issue as you with sneak peek, it is marking things as read by all by itself with me too, and the behaviour is quite recent.
I don't think it is browser specific, I'm using Ff3.

As far as I'm aware, some users have recently  been experiencing different message sorting behaviour in their parts of their gmail account, not just in searches. This thread appeared not long ago on Gmail-users: - Sort threads by date of latest message.
In addition some users have reported that priority inbox orders messages by 'first message in a thread', not 'first unread message'

You should check how mail is ordered & displayed in your labels (if you have not already done so), as compared to inbox and all mail.
Just out of curiosity, have you turned on priority inbox at all, even if you are not now using it?
I'm not using it and have never enabled it for this account.

I am suspicious that the mail ordering issues may be linked to gmail's implementation priority inbox, as all these issues appear to start from about that time, and match behaviour some people have reported for priority inbox. I may be wrong...

Don't know how many people this is affecting. Whether a  gmail user even notices some of this behaviour will depend on how they use and access their email.

Personally, I think that there should be the option to choose how our email is ordered, across all aspects and areas of gmail, and ideally it should be switchable, and the controls be readily accessible, on same page, or available as keyboard shortcut, not just in settings. I would envisage the choice to sort by a combination of two characteristics - 'date' and 'read or unread' giving the choice to display mail by date of the first or last message in a conversation, moderated by the terms read or unread. (& yes, I've suggested it in the appropriate place)

Sarah

[Zack (Doc)]

I can't comment on the second part.

As far as opening the conversations, I'm still seeing the same behavior you describe, even in a search; WHEN the search is for things like "is:unread", "label:inbox", etc.  When I search for a particular phrase I get the same results that Nick described.

[Just_Joe]

Yeah, I've noticed that change with Sneak Peek--a change which I find
to be less than helpful. One good thing still [for the moment] about
Sneak Peek is that it will, by default, open with the latest message
for a conversation with no unread messages; I hope this doesn't get
"updated" by Google (or whoever created this Labs feature), too.

[gckorn]

I am having the same problem with Sneak Peek. I first noticed it
several weeks ago and just now researched the forums on it. When I
used keyboard shortcuts, i.e., h, to take a Sneak Peek, Gmail then
marks the message as Read. This is contrary to the entire point of
Sneak Peak.

So Google Engineers - Please fix this.

gckorn
www.maine.info/hosting

On Sep 22, 2:44 pm, Andy <AI.eg...@gmail.com> wrote:

[gckorn]

I am having the same problem. Using keyboard shortcut "h" to Sneak
Peek a message, it marks the message as Read, which defeats the very
purpose of Sneak Peek.

Likewise, when I go to Settings -> Labs and try to report the problem,
the reporting system is broken, i.e., cannot specify the nature of the
problem (or cannot insert a Comment if the Comment option is
selected).

gckorn
maine.info/hosting