Mailspring Windows: does not follow knownfolders rule in windows

Ronaldvr · March 29, 2021, 11:28am

Description

When asking to which folder an attachment should be saved, mailspring shows the (probably hardcoded ?) folder
C:\USERS\username\DOWNLOADS

This should not happen, Windows has since Vista(!) the “KnownFolders” class which points to the current location:

Windows Vista introduces new storage scenarios and a new user profile namespace. To address these new factors, the older system of referring to standard folders by a CSIDL value has been replaced. As of Windows Vista, those folders are referenced by a new set of GUID values called Known Folder IDs.

To Reproduce…

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

Downloads folder is not in the C:USERS\username\Downloads location but elsewhere (e.g. Onedrive, on another physical drive)
2.Click an attachment and save it in the shown Downloads folder
It shows up under C:\USERS\username\Downloads

Expected Behavior

The file is saved in the location where all the other downloads end up

Mailspring Version:1.80 8983dca2

Daniel · March 29, 2021, 9:29pm

Good catch Looks like it’s hard-coded to use %USERPROFILE%\Downloads if it exists, otherwise falling back to the temp directory:

github.com

Foundry376/Mailspring/blob/cff437e90052f610e72aa9668b98e380e67ff2a5/app/src/flux/stores/attachment-store.ts#L285-L294


if (process.platform === 'win32') {
  home = process.env.USERPROFILE;
} else {
  home = process.env.HOME;
}

let downloadDir = path.join(home, 'Downloads');
if (!fs.existsSync(downloadDir)) {
  downloadDir = os.tmpdir();
}

Getting the path of a known folder is tricky in Node.js… There’s no native JS API for it so you need to call the native Win32 SHGetKnownFolderPath API (eg. using ffi). Something like this:

fonziemedia · March 2, 2024, 1:42pm

Any progress/workaround for this issue?

I really like mailspring but I work with a lot of email downloads/archiving and this is a deal breaker for me at the moment.

Thanks