Notices

Hi, been lurking, bought one, now posting.
I gather I am not the only one with some difficulty in understanding how the email app works. Can I ask if I have this correct?

I have an IMAP account. I have set email to get headers only. I start the email app and it shows me headers for the (say) 100 messages on the server. I decide I wat to read one of them, so I click on it, and it brings the message contents onto the 770 and shows me. I read the message and decide I'll deal with that another day. To save memory I want to get the message contents off of my 770. If I go message->delete->delete from Tablet only, it removes the message content as well as the header from my 770. Now it seems that I will never get that header back to remind me to get back to that email at some point. Is there no way to remove the message contents from the 770 memory but leave the header so I could peruse it again later?

Hope that makes sense. Any help appreciated.

Hi awmoore - Surprisingly, I think I know the answer to this one. I use the email app in IMAP mode as well, and it has some interesting "quirks" / learning curve.

1) If you run it in "headers only" - it only downloads the headers. Opening the email causes it to only temporarily download the email, not perm AFAIK.

If you delete the header, you have deleted the email. (I think). If you just close the email, you can still retrieve it from the server.

2) Email memory. I am not sure how many emails you get, but I have 1500 headers and emails in mine. On the original 64 k card, it seemed like I hit a max, but when I upgraded to the 1 GB card, it has held all of them. It is not clear why, as the emails do not appear to be on the mem card.

3) Multiple email accounts. The email client is pretty marginal, even by my standards. It treats all incoming emails as coming to the main user. The emails come in, but are all mixed together. When you reply, it only replies via the main user as far as I can tell. This is very inconvenient for a mixture of work / personal emails.

I really wish that Opera had provided a port of their email / contact client in addition to the browser. I originally thought they had, and switched to Opera for desktop in the hopes of gaining a sync between the two.

This would have solved several apps limitations in one
- solid email client
- solid (not strong) contact list with phone / adr info
- to do list

I still use a paper calendar, so that was a non issue for me.

Hi! Thanks! I was beginning to think either everyone except me totally understands this, or has totally given up on it

But the behavior I find does not completely match with your theories:

Start from the beginning. Go on the net and download the headers. The new messages show a little grayed-out, closed envelope icon to the far left. Choose one and click on it. The message is displayed for you in a new window. Read the message and then close (click on upper right corner "X") the message window. The icon in the main email window is now a not-grayed-out open envelope. I'm pretty sure this means the contents are resident on your 770. In fact, if I go to the wifi connection selector and disconnect from the network, I can still view the contents (body) of any message that I had previously read and closed, i.e. any that has the not-grayed-out open envelope. I think that proves that it's resident on the 770, since it can't acquire the body from the network with the net disconnected.

I'm really hoping for some way to return it to the original grayed-out closed envelope state -- that is, the contents not on my 770 but the header visible in the email app for me to click on to retrieve and view the contents again if I want to .

Really surprised at the weirdness of this email app! I am not a fan of the mixing multiple inbox thing, but I conceptually got ahold of that pretty readily. This "I want to delete the body but not the header" thing was harder for me to wrap my head around what it is and is not doing.

Check it out -- I'd be pleased if you proved me wrong!

Hi - I "think" you are starting to get into the fundamental difference between POP and IMAP email. Not an expert here at all, just a poking beginner.

My limited understanding of IMAP is that unlike POP, it tries to be synchronized with actions on the email client (s). These clients can be "on line" or "off line and synchronized later".

The advantage of this is that it allows you to more easily use multiple computers / devices / web mail to capture all of the emails. (which is what I really do, so I use IMAP instead of POP) Actual detailed use gets trickier.

Once you tell the IMAP email software that you have "read" a file, it no longer is "unread", so the envelope will show it as "open". I don't know how to change this back to an "un open email" in IMAP, but it might be possible in a POP format. The problem, is that to do this in POP, it will assume that nothing has been read. (I think)

If you delete an email in IMAP, it becomes less clear, as you appear to have the option both in your client(s) and your email server setup to either retain or delete emails that are opened / deleted, both at the client level and the server level.

I have largely given up trying to delete emails using this client, as I just could not figure out what it was doing in relation to the server, and frankly, it was too slow. I also have not been able to get it to recognize the IMAP folders which I know are on the system. I use my desktop Opera browser / client or web mail to do the heavy lifting, and just keep the 770 client fully sync'ed with both the headers and contents (but not attachments). This goes pretty fast.

Last but not least, I have read that very few server / client software programs are actually fully compliant to IMAP, so that can be a factor as well.

Sorry if that is not really an answer. I actually have posted in the Opera forum requesting that they port their email client over to the 770 - who knows ?

Ha, well that's a delicate way to suggest I don't grok IMAP
That certainly could be true. I use different IMAP clients at home and work and they don't me like the 770... but I don't ever use them in offline or header-only modes, so perhaps my understanding is incomplete. I'll try to do a little more studying before I gripe again

The 770 email app is crap. Hey I made a rhyme!!

I wish someone would port something usefull, because that one is garbage. I don't want quirks in my email client, I just want it to be usefull.

Why can I only get headers with imap, I should be able to get headers only with pop also.

Why do multiple accounts dump into the same inbox, this is a management nightmere.

Then then is the occaisonal crashing and altogether quirkyness

For now I am using squirrelmail at home and using OWA at work, the 770 email client is garbage, oh yeah I already said that!!!

PB

I actually bought the Nokia 770 primarily for it's support of encrypted email. While the app lacks IMAP synchronization, resulting in very slow message cleanup, it's pretty good.

I do hope to see some performance refinement in the email app because I know we all receive alarming amounts of unwanted email that must be painstakingly deleted.

If you haven't checked out the ability to use Verisign or Thawte Freemail encryption certificates, do give it a spin!

- Bill