[MlMt] Feature request: "Reset/Delete 'High Priority' Flag"

[Bill Cole]

On 13 Nov 2018, at 13:38, TJ Luoma wrote:

> We all know these folks… they may be friends, loved one, or even
> co-workers… but there are just some people who seem unable to send 
> out
> an email without labelling it as HIGH PRIORITY.
>
> Of course, that almost instantly makes their messages seem _not_ high
> priority, because if everything is an emergency, then nothing really
> is.
>
> I would love it if MailMate could allow me to turn off the HIGH
> PRIORITY flag in emails that I receive which I deem to be not HIGH
> PRIORITY.
>
> I don't want to turn off the entire column because I do sometimes use
> regular flags to highlight messages.

I agree completely, and I hope Benny comes up with an implementation.

However, there is a quirk with this misfeature of email which explains 
why changing the "Priority" isn't universally implemented: it is not an 
IMAP keyword (which would be a local receiver-set value.) Instead, it is 
set by the sender adding one or more non-standard headers: X-Priority, 
Priority, X-Importance, Importance, or X-MSMail-Priority. I don't know 
which of these MailMate specifically honors but they all share the same 
problem: as headers they are an internal part of the delivered message, 
which an IMAP server must never modify.

So, unsetting the 'Priority' requires the IMAP client (MailMate) to 
reconstruct the message without whichever header(s) it is honoring and 
store it and then to delete the original. This means the client has to 
do more housekeeping on the state of a message and it means that other 
clients could catch the server in a state where both messages exist.