More Involved Management of "Read" Status for IMAP

[Relentence]

Right now, if I understand correctly, POP Peeper's management of IMAP "read" status is fairly basic. The option "Use 'Read' status from server on initial retrieval" will mark the message as read in POP Peeper if the message is marked as read on the server at the time POP Pepper downloads the message. In addition, if the retrieval option is set to "Preview" or "Full Message", the server status will be set to read when POP Peeper downloads the message.

We live in a multi-device world. I have my email on my home computer, on my office computer, on my phone and I can access it from anywhere via webmail. I'd love to see improvements to POP Peeper that allow it to fit better into this ecosystem by having a more dynamic interaction with the server's read status. Here's some features that I'd love to see:

1. When POP Pepper downloads a message as "Preview" or "Full Message", it shouldn't mark the message as read. (If this is a side effect of downloading the message, then it should immediately send the command to mark the message as unread.)
2. Should I view the message in POP Peeper, then it should send the server a command to mark the message as read. Or if I toggle the message as unread in POP Pepper, it should send the server command to mark the message as unread.
3. If I read the message in another client, or I use another client to mark a message as unread, POP Pepper should take note and adjust its cached message status.

I did some testing with the various clients I use outside of POP Pepper and this is more or less how they behave. If I mark a message as read in my IMAP client, then it shows up as read when I log into webmail, or if I view my inbox on my phone. Right now, I spend time marking messages as read in POP Pepper when I get home for the night because I've already read those messages at the office or on my phone. It would be excellent if POP Pepper played better with the other applications that allow me to access email.

Thanks.

[Prehistoricman]

I know what you mean. PP should be able to tell from the POP server if a message has been read. If POP servers can't do this, you need to do a hack to get 'read' info from the webpage or another source.

Or, you could improve the POP service and distribute it to the major email providers. How does POP4 sound?

Oh, and PP should be able to mark all mail as read from the context menu on the taskbar icon. I don't want to go all the way into a program, select emails and then press mark all as read.

[Jeff]

Relentence -- I completely agree. Better Imap support will be a primary focus after the v4.0 release.

Prehistoricman -- Your request doesn't really have anything to do with the OP, but I'll respond here regardless. In fact, POP3 does not have that capability and it would be impossible to get that information from a webpage (every custom webmail service that an ISP supports would have to be supported). POP3 is an antiquated system that only lives on because most ISPs refuse to provide Imap, probably because it's more work for them to support. The good news is, there are plenty of free services that provide Imap. I doubt that there will ever be a POP4 because Imap is already a superior protocol.

There is an option in PPTweaker that will mark all messages as read when you minimize PP. This means you could get the process down to simply twice double-clicking the tray icon (once to open PP, again to minimize PP):
http://www.poppeeper.com/PPTweaker/
The option is on the first 'misc' page, just above the 'View mode settings' section at the bottom.

[Relentence]

I tried out PP 4.1 RC1 today and can confirm that IMAP read status is working as desired in PP. Thanks so much for implementing this! This will provide a huge improvement in how PP integrates with my other devices.

[Jeff]

Great, glad to hear it! I do expect the official v4.1 soon.