Mail automatically marked read when replying

I’d really like the option of emails not being marked read when replying to them. I like to mark messages as read manually only.

The use case is that I keep emails with pressing matters unread until they are resolved. They show up neatly in default unread view in both eM Client and BlueMail on my phone. BlueMail does not have this issue.

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Go to Menu/Settings and then select Mail. Uncheck top 2 boxes in list displayed, save. eM Client should then never mark mail as read, but you can mark it read or unread whenever you choose.

Like this

Menu > Tools > Settings…

I have those unchecked. It works fine except when replying to a message.

Hello,

It’s true that replying to the message marks it as “read”. We’ll consider if it’s a bug or meant behaviour.
As a workaround, I can recommend using the flags instead of the red/unread.

Russel 

Could it be added as an option? I’m sure there are people with different preferences about this. Take a look at this for example: https://forum.emclient.com/emclient/topics/mark_message_as_read_when_replying_or_forwarding

In any case, the current behavior is not logical when aforementioned boxes are unchecked. The reply action seems to be the only thing that automatically marks a message read.

I thought about using flags but it’s not the same. I’ve flagged important messages to find them easily later. I don’t want them mixed with unresolved matters in the same view. Also with my email clients opening in the unread view seeing the flagged messages requires extra steps.

This is the only issue I have with eM Client. I changed to it recently after years of using Opera mail (which doesn’t suffer from this).

Hello,
it’s assumed that if you are replying to or forwarding a message, you read it. Which is why the standard behavior is to mark it as read.

There is currently no setting in eM Client to change this behavior, but I will change your thread to an ‘Idea’ so it can be added to our feature request list and our developers can consider it for future versions of eM Client.

Regards,
Olivia

YES Please! In my business, knowing all emails have been taken care of are extremely important and i would have to flag almost everything and then unflag it to achieve this… Simple solution seems to have a checkbox in settings to not mark as read when replying as suggested above.

Is there any update on this?

Either a message is read, or unread. Rather you are looking for a way to mark messages as needing further attention. Generally you flag such a message, but anyway, that is not the same as unread. 

So I have to agree with Olivia on this one. It is assumed that if you reply to a message that you have read it so the intended behavior seems logical and correct. Or do you reply to messages you haven’t read? That would be quite a marketable skill. :wink:

To take Russel’s flagging suggestion further, you could create a Rule to assign a set category to all incoming messages. (You can’t have a Rule flag a message, so we use a category instead.) It does that automatically so it is not an extra click on every message like manually flagging would be. Then when you decide you have reached your own personal degree of read, you can simply remove the category from that message. The wonderful thing is that you can also create a Search Folder to display all the messages in that category, similar to the Unread one.

Wow! What a great comment and so quick! I see where that may be a bit confusing from your point of view. I’ll try this out as I didn’t think auto flag and just change my process a bit… Thank You!

One problem with the category suggestion is the lack of synchronization to other email clients such as on a phone. Also changing views instead of staying in the unread view is very arduous on a phone app UI.

Is it really too much to ask to let the user decide when a message is (thoroughly and completely) read?

If the phone app is difficult to use, maybe something for you to discuss on the phone app forum?

But misuse of the read status is not sufficient reason to request a change in the way the application works. Automatically marking as read on reply is logical. How can you reply to something you haven’t read? How do you then distinguish between messages that are actually unread, and those that are unread read messages? Or is that read unread? What you really want is to assign the message as to-do or review, not mark it as unread.

Maybe there should be a NO Vote on ideas as I would hate to see eM Client Inc. change this behavior.

Well, as I said in my opening post, my phone app handles this perfectly: it doesn’t mark messages read automatically in any situation, if I don’t want it to. Changing views on a UI made for 6" or smaller screens can never be as easy as on a computer.

I’m not asking to change how eM Client works by default but requesting to have an option to change this behavior. The default behavior is definitely the logical choice for most use cases.

You can definitely reply to messages you have read only in part or reply to a part of the message and leave another part to reply to later.

Not distinguishing between new unread and read unread messages is exactly the point! All are of equal importance until I mark them as read. I want to see the messages again and again until I’m done with them. If I mark them some other way and move them away from the unread view that I see every time I open an email client, I’m not reminded of them until I switch views. The messages are also sorted by date received.

I basically do this with paper mail, as well. I might open an envelope and have a quick glance what it is about. I might even do some action due to that information. But I would actually and fully read the contents later. I would not be happy if the envelope and its contents automatically flew to my paper recycling pile before that.

I’m not asking to change how eM Client works by default but requesting to have an option to change this behavior.

No? Just asking to introduce bad habits from other applications then.

You can definitely reply to messages you have read only in part or reply to a part of the message and leave another part to reply to later.

For the purpose of the computer application, that is classified as read. But what I said before is it needs to be flagged, or somehow assigned to a to-do or review category if you need to come back and re-read or whatever. NOT unread. Unread means, well unread. 

I basically do this with paper mail, as well. I might open an envelope and have a quick glance what it is about

I suppose you carefully reseal the envelope afterwards so that it looks unopened and then put it back in the mailbox . No, you put it in the pile with the other mail to be handled later because it has been read and needs further action.

Not distinguishing between new unread and read unread messages is exactly the point!

Read unread was a joke!! That is exactly the point! There is no such thing as read unread. You cannot unread something.

But seriously, in the end I think it is quicker to use the system adopted by eM Client. It very cleverly marks the original message as read when you reply to it saving you that extra step. If you want to misuse the read status as a to-do flag, then just mark it as unread after you have sent the reply. You will probably find there are less clicks involved to remark those few as unread than to manually mark everything else as read.

Read unread. LOL!!!

qazserNOS - what phone app are you using? I have an iphone an everything marks it as read as soon as I touch it! lol

I didn’t think about syncing though. That is a good point as I am mobile a bunch too. Just trying to find a good solution is all. EMClient is by far the best email client out there in my opinion, just not sure how to solve my last little issue :slight_smile:

I’ve been wanting that option to keep replied-to emails as unread for years.
I use the “Unread” folder in the client, and I want to keep at least some messages I reply to there, so I don’t lose sight of them.
As it is now, and has been for years, whenever I reply to an email, I have to click “Mark as unread”. Why can’t I go untick a box in the settings, when it already exists for mails you open as a separate window?

You can’t reply to a message you haven’t read.

Therefor, when you reply to a message, it is marked as read.

Thank you for your very useful contribution, moderator.

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@Gary: How about you stop fighting with your customers (especially in such arrogant way) and start listening to what we have to say?

One can reply to a message without reading it, e.g.: “I’ll take a look on this issue next week.”
One can certainly forward message without reading it, e.g. to collegue: “Please check if this message needs response from us.”

I agree with DamienP and qazserNOS, this option would be great. Em Client is a great email client and I’m certaily interested in making it even more adopted to our needs.

So please reconsider putting an option for this behaviour in Settings.

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