[MlMt] Composed messages saved to a Drafts mailbox in MM v. 6238 and higher not visible on any other devices

[Bill Cole]

On 2025-04-02 at 07:50:25 UTC-0400 (Wed, 2 Apr 2025 11:50:25 +0000)
Henry Seiden <mailmate at lists.freron.com>
is rumored to have said:

> Hello All,
>
> So, what is it with message(s) composed in MM and saved to the Drafts 
> Mailbox in any account?
> * Found that, as Benny alluded to (in previous conversations on v 
> 6241), MM behaves differently than other apps (notably Mail.app in 
> Sequoia and earlier) now: A message composed in MM on one machine does 
> not appear on any other device. When did this become effective? I 
> consider this a problem. You?

I do not see this. I just used r6241 to create a new message and saved 
it to Drafts. I can see it on my iPhone in both Apple Mail and Preside.

> * Composed a message and saved it in Mail to the account’s Drafts 
> Folder. It is likewise visible on any other device (tested with 
> iPhone, iPad, other Mac devices running Sequoia and current iOS, 
> however not so in MM. It is only visible in the device it was composed 
> in! Has this always been the case?

I just created a Draft and save it from Mail.app on Sonoma. It is 
visible in Preside and Mail on the iPhone. It is visible in MM on Sonoma 
BUT MM does not treat it as a draft when opening it, despite it seeing 
the \Draft tag, so MM cannot directly edit it as a draft and send it. 
Even using "Edit as new message" doesn't open an editable copy, as it 
loses the whole body.

Apple creates drafts with a slew of custom (X-*) headers identifying it 
as an Apple Mail draft, plus the Drafts keyword. Neither MM nor Preside 
treat these as drafts.

MM creates drafts with almost no identifying *content*, just a X-Mailer 
header and the Drafts keyword. Apple Mail (but not Preside) treats these 
as Drafts, e.g. it opens an editor when one is clicked.

> * Experimented with two or three accounts between Mail and MM 
> composing, saving a draft in each app. Lo! Always works the same (MM 
> Drafts are locally resident and invisible elsewhere.

Cannot reproduce. Are you using the "Save" command in MM?

> Is this a “Feature” or a bug? I don’t like it, but is seems to 
> be there as far back as I can quickly determine, v6238 onwards, seems 
> unrelated to Benny’s recent Network Framework TLS 1.3 update.
> * In my opinion a email begun on one device should be registered in 
> the Drafts mailbox and by the nature of the IMAP account be visible by 
> other devices, particularly mobile devices, but really any devices 
> using the same account(s). Portability issue?

I do not see the problem you are reporting...

It is arguable that drafts created in one MUA should be editable in 
others, however there is a problem in that because different MUAs use 
different tactics when constructing mail with an HTML alternative 
version. It isn't assured that a complex message with formatted text an 
embedded images in a draft state will be comprehensible to other MUAs.

However, *visibility* in the Drafts folder is a clear issue: any pending 
draft from any machine or MUA should be *visible* there IFF the MUA has 
saved it.


> So, I’m looking for confirmation that this is indeed occurring for 
> all users

Nope.

> and for your opinion (assuming you can replicate it) that  you 
> consider this either a bug or some undocumented feature.

I would think this would be a bug if I could reproduce it. I suspect it 
is due to you not telling MM to save your drafts. MM won't save drafts 
to the server automatically, you need to do it explicitly.

> A search of the manual and the Help files could find nothing about 
> this behavior. If someone on an earlier version than 6238 (or Benny) 
> can test it to confirm or help deduce at what point in the evolution 
> cycle of MM this was the case or not, I’d appreciate it- pretty sure 
> that is not the case originally =when I started using MM about three 
> years ago.

In over a decade using MM I have not seen what you describe.


-- 
  Bill Cole
  bill at scconsult.com or billcole at apache.org
  (AKA @grumpybozo at toad.social and many *@billmail.scconsult.com 
addresses)
  Not Currently Available For Hire