Support for IMAP flags (aka "labels" or "categories")

Feature Suggestions
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#1

The Problem

IMAP flags (or labels as they are sometimes called) would be nice to have working. This since it allows a many-to-many mapping of emails and tagging, rather than the one-to-many mapping which is possible with folders.

IMAP flags are essentially like “Gmail labels”, except that Gmail did some quick hacks for their use case, such as showing the labels as folders instead of using IMAP flags (cf. RFC 3501, RFC 3501 - INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION 4rev1, see section 2.3.2. Flags Message Attribute)

Proposed Solution

At a user interface level almost exactly, if not exactly, as the Gmail label support.

A plus would be a mapping table, such that the user can specify the visual name and the “back-end”-name (i.e. the IMAP flag). This since it might be necessary to avoid certain characters in the actual IMAP keyword flag. I.e. configuration along the lines of:

Symbol Display name IMAP keyword Gmail label Office 365 label
:warning: Urgent urgent
:family_man_woman_boy: Family family private/family
:memo: Item for next meeting agendaitem meeting

This would also allow for interoperability with other mail clients, and even bridge the gap to Gmail so it would be possible to sort and filter (the hopefully upcoming) smart folders based on these flags. For example to have a smart folder with only emails with the “Item for next meeting”-flag set.

As such it would also be possible to use the symbols in situations where there is less space, such as single-line inbox-scenarios (if that is going to be a thing).

Preferably this should work with Office 365 labels as well in the long run.

Context

MailMate has a good implementation, see:
https://manual.mailmate-app.com/organize#tags

(I’m limited to two links per post, so I can’t link more here)

MailMate is macOS only, and I’d like MailSpring to be up to par for Linux :slight_smile:

#2

Adding a link with a more advanced use-case:

1 Like
#3

Merging in some duplicate issues:

#4

+1 For this feature. I think this is a must-have for a shared email account.

For inspiration, the OWL plugin for Thunderbird (Owl for Exchange) can handle categories/labels for Office 365 accounts and syncs them instantly.

#5

@bengotow Is this a feature that will be added to the roadmap? I am really missing it in my daily work.

Do more people like to have labels/tags with an outlook/office365 account?

I would like to have this feature much more than the ones offered in the pro account :slight_smile:

#6

I’m looking for an Outlook alternative because I can’t tag / label my gmail business emails in Outlook.

Just installed Mailspring and I find it tags Gmail messages perfectly. It’s perfect!

But now I can’t tag my Outlook 365 business emails in Mailspring :frowning:

Is this feature being developed?

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