Collapsing folders/subfolders

[Geezer]

There doesn't appear to be a way to collapse/expand personal folders in the Folder UI.  That would make it much easier than scrolling through all of the subfolders.  Searching the forum I see where that was a feature request a few years ago.  But the Feature Request topic list is no longer 'open'.

So if there is a way to do it (e.g. turn it on) please let me know.  Otherwise, what is the correct way to request this feature now?

Thanks.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

The app's "manage folders" screen and the "pick folder to move to" dialog both have search.

Oh, and "fast scroll" (drag thumb on the side) too.

[Geezer]

Yes, thanks.  Those are certainly ways to locate a folder.  I'm just advocating for the tree view, which I think is a relatively conventional way to present this type of list.  I'm sure it's low priority, with many other pressing enhancements and occasional bug fixes on your list.

BTW, your app is feature-rich, well-designed and very secure.  I've spent two days now after purchasing and I'm very impressed.  Nicely done.

[StR]

Just to add from the user side:
Yes I agree that it would be a useful feature, but I am not sure how many Aquamail users would benefit from it.
Here is why:
E-mail folders very seldom have deep tree structure:
Some (many?) IMAP servers do not support hierarchical e-mail folders. (Even some relatively major free e-mail providers do not allow those, - e.g. GMX, IIRC.)
Besides, I've seen very few users who use tree structure for e-mail folders. Of all the e-mail accounts I use, only 2 have nested folders. In all cases, it's an "archive" folder that either contains "archived" folders (and I've never needed to access those from my phone), or folders transferred from an old account from the previous work, - also a sort of archive that I've never used from the phone. It would be convenient to hide them under the collapsed folder.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

I'm also just not sure if this could be done well on the small (phone) screens or even tablets.

Even if you look at 10" tablets and compare them to notebooks -- Outlook / Thunderbird, right? -- those start at about 13" more or less, and UI elements can be much smaller compared to touch-oriented ones on Android.

[Geezer]

Yes, the condensed space is an issue.  I tried an app that has an > icon to the left of folders containing subfolders.  I found I was having trouble tapping it without hitting the phone case which is slightly raised above the glass.


Options are limited if no icon is used.  Tapping displays the contents of the folder.  Long press on a folder name could toggle the expand/collapse I suppose, but that's not particularly intuitive given the more common tree UI.  Swiping is not an option.  An interesting UI design challenge for sure.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Yes, that's something to keep in mind when making comparisons with desktop (Windows, etc) mail apps.

Another thing is - AquaMail doesn't always (most of the time) show the entire list of folders on its main screen, rather the user can choose which folders are "important enough" to keep up to date on his/her mobile device, and which ones are not.

And this can result in a "broken" hierarchy, which would be difficult to patch up for a unified hierarchical list.

[Geezer]

Kostya wrote: "And this can result in a "broken" hierarchy, which would be difficult to patch up for a unified hierarchical list."

Agreed.  A way to keep the UI straightforward and underlying code halfway manageable might be to preserve the full hierarchy, marking the "unimportant" folders in a way to indicate "not synced" (e.g. dimmed/gray).  Regardless, improving this part of the UI may be something to consider when the current enhancement/bug list becomes much shorter.

[spencerb]

I do agree with the points above, especially the one about broken hierachy's.  However, I think it would be helpful, perhaps as a "workaround", to at least display folder names based on the IMAP hierarchy.   What I mean is this:
Since IMAP folders conventionally handle subfolders/parent folders by using a character like / or . in the folder name, I think it would be useful to allow the user to optionally remove the foldername before the delimiter.
e.g. say I have a folder called parent.  Then  I create a subfolder in parent called child.
Then I set the child folder to sync in aquamail.  In the UI that folder shows up as parent.child, which for me is rather annoying.  If there cannot be a UI tree for subfolders, I'd rather aquamail simply treat them as any other folder.  (which I realize is what's actually happening, it just doesn't appear that way aesthetically.  Although this is a matter of taste, I can't imagine I am the only one who would prefer this behavior.  Therefore I think it would be quite useful as a configurable option.

[StR]

Then I set the child folder to sync in aquamail.  In the UI that folder shows up as parent.child, which for me is rather annoying.  If there cannot be a UI tree for subfolders, I'd rather aquamail simply treat them as any other folder.  (which I realize is what's actually happening, it just doesn't appear that way aesthetically.  Although this is a matter of taste, I can't imagine I am the only one who would prefer this behavior.  Therefore I think it would be quite useful as a configurable option.

While I agree that the UI related to the list of folders can be improved (I have a large number of folders in some most used accounts, and 2-4 level tree structures in some of those.), this specific suggestion is carefully thought through. What if you have parent1.child, patent2.child and just child? How would you distinguish between the three  if your suggestion were implemented?

[Theboot]

Just throwing in my $0.02.  Like the OP, I was looking for a way to collapse folders in the folder list so that by default it would just show 1st level parent folders but give the option to expand to child folders (multi layer if relevant) by using a '>'.  I am using aqualmail for a corporate account which is a job I have been at for almost 15 years:  a time span over which a lot of folders have come to exist in my email and to keep my sanity I have organized them into parent/child folders.  Currently in aquamail, filing an email requires me to scroll through over 500 folders.  Search is helpful but not always and takes extra time.  The fast scroll feature is not all that practical as it is extremely difficult to be accurate on a phone screen.

I have become a huge fan of aquamail since I recently switched over and intend on keeping this as my primary.  This folder thing is literally the only thing I would like to see changed.  I know it is possible because other email apps have it.  I know for certain that the native samsung email app does this and, having just left Nine for aquamail, I know that Nine has this collapse / expand feature.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

There was a time maybe a year or two ago, when the folder picking dialog was hierarchical:

not exactly as you describe, but it showed all folders on a particular level and then you'd tap "into" one and it'd show folders inside that, and so on.

Same idea though.

Guess what? Users complained.