Unsubscribe from receiving these messages

At the top of work email sent from a distribution list there is a message asking if I want to unsubscribe from these message. Is there anyway to turn this off?

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It is common for list messages to contain unsubscribe information. eM Client very nicely places that where you can see it, but you cannot disable it. If it is there in the received message, eM Client will display it.

Can it be moved to the bottom of the page??  It is distracting and unnecessary. Other mail programs have it at the end of the message

Unfortunately not Janice. That section of the message preview is reserved for information about the message and there is no user configurable option for it.

Maybe the next major release, version 8, will be different. We will just have to wait and see.

Just wondering if there has been any news on this?  This is one of the reasons I never upgraded to version 7.x.  Testing out version 8 now, but I still don’t see any way to remove either the unsubscribe link, or, if not possible, the message preview section entirely.

Before I give up on it, figure I would ask to see if I am missing something.

The message preview can be disabled in the menu.

However, the unsubscribe link will still be in the message widow that opens on double click.

Not what I am looking for.  If “unsubscribe” cannot be turned off, I was hoping that that part of the message header could be hidden, not the whole message preview.    Going that way, there is still no way to view a message without the unsubscribe link being present.

I tend to find that link to not only be useless, but it is particularly obnoxious when there is an “unsubscribe” link at the top of important and necessary correspondence from people like medical insurance providers, doctors, vets, etc.

Doesn’t seem like much to ask “quit parsing my emails!”.

Well, you did ask how to remove “the message preview section entirely”, so I gave you the method to do that.

A solution to your dilemma may be to just unsubscribe from these mailing lists, then you will not see the option at all.

If the message is not coming from a mailing list, and the unsubscribe header is still in the message, then you may want to contact the sender and ask them to fix that.

You are right, I did say message preview.  Which is why I clarified in my response that that is not what I am looking for, rather just that section of the message’s header which contains the unsubscribe link.

I am pretty sure I said “important and necessary”, so unsubscribing isn’t really a viable  option. 

Take, for example, my healthcare provider… they are sending out regular updates and guidelines on what to do about Covid-19,  how to go about getting seen by a doctor, how to get virtual appointments scheduled, procedures for clinic access, etc.  

Another example, and a slightly more ironic one at that, is the eM Client forum notification messages for this very thread.  Obviously I want to get updates to my questions and be notified of any responses to my questions.  Every time, the first thing you see when clicking on the email though is… “Unsubscribe from receiving these messages.”

These types of messages alway have unsubscribe information in the footer (the only ones who I’ve ever seen which are moving that to the header area is Em Client).  Trying to get these companies to remove the unsubscribe information isn’t only futile, but it is likely illegal for them to do so.

This feature in eM Client is NOT a duplication of an unsubscribe link in the message text. It has nothing to do with the message body at all, but is taken from the List-Unsubscribe option from the message header which you would not otherwise see. If that header is not in the message, even if there is a link at the end of the message text, it is not displayed by eM Client.

Interesting, I was not aware of that.  Curious as to why eM Client allows people to hide the entire rest of the header, but not this bit though…?

eM Client does not allow users to hide any part of the header. Rather, by design, it just displays the most important parts.

Let me fix that for you…
“Rather, by design, it just display the parts that eM Client, rather than the user, want it to display.”
To say it shows the “important parts” is extremely arguable.

For instance, eM Client doesn’t typically show originating server and routing info, which is one of the better indications of spoofed email.  Extremely important; however, most users would not only ignore it, but wouldn’t know what to do with it to begin with.  So it is typically hidden from everyone unless they want to look at the full header.

Unsubscribe information is typically duplicated at the bottom, footer section of emails, so I would argue that showing it’s duplication from the header, from a user standpoint, is of almost zero value.  Considering that eM is the first email client I’ve come across that puts the header unsubscribe information in such a prominent front and center position,  and the fact we have all gotten along just fine without it there, would tend to lend at least some credibility to my position that it isn’t all that important.

I will likely just roll back to version 6 (if I can get OAuth to work properly) while I look for alternatives (not just for this issue… I also have issues with eM Client’s insistence of requiring that Google’s All Folders be enabled, which has serious privacy, bandwidth, and performance issues).

As I said above, this is not the same as an unsubscribe link in a message body. You can try that for yourself by creating a message with an unsubscribe link and mail it to yourself. eM Client will not provide the handy unsubscribe link at the top of the message. That is because your body text is not a header. This display in eM Client is from a header, not the text body, and is not generally displayed in email clients. In this respect eM Client is way ahead of the competition, as many lists do not include that in the message body, contrary to what you said above. Without eM Client’s foresight in providing this, there would be no direct way to unsubscribe.

eM Client does not need to display the originating server, but it will indicate spoofed addresses. In this respect eM Client scores very high compared to other email clients, many of which do not even have the capability to detect spoofed addresses.

Yes, any situation is arguable, just like you using words like important and necessary to describe a mailing list text. :wink:

As I regularly comment on this forum, if the application is not working for you, find something else. Why waste your time with something you obviously do not find useful?

GMail actually only has 3 folders; All Mail, Trash and Spam. They way it works is that messages exist in the All Mail folder and are then separated into virtual folders like Inbox, Sent etc. by the use of labels. Any email client that connects to GMail IMAP will require the syncing of the All Mail folder. There is no way getting by that because if you disable it, you will only have the Trash and Spam folders in your email client. You can try that for yourself by disabling the All Mail folder using the web interface for your GMail account.

There are no privacy issues, as these are the same messages you see in the other folders. If they aren’t in the other folders, they aren’t in the All Mail folder. Saying this is a privacy issue is the same as saying that syncing your Inbox is a privacy issue. Really doesn’t make any sense. There are also no bandwidth issues because the messages are only synced once, and then displayed separately according to their GMail labels.

I understand that it isn’t the header link isn’t the same as the body link, but they are functionally either the the exact same, or at least very similar.   That makes showing this information redundant.
An example:  the email from this forum contains both an unsubscribe link in the header and in the body as a footer.  They both do the exact same thing. 

The defacto standard for email is to place unsubscribe information in the footer area, and has been for over a decade.  Personally, outside of shady companies/groups, I have not run across any email which contains a valid header unsubscribe link but not a in-body-of-the-email one.  As for the shady ones, well they are shady and the header isn’t to be believed either.  I have been out of the server admin game for a few years, I am will to admit that maybe that has changed recently.

Email clients, virus scanners, email servers, etc. are all looking for bad actors and incompetent admins and trying to flag them.  Some are better than others, but even with the best, some stuff does get through.  My pont was that the header contains a lot of important information, most of it is extremely useful for backend processing, but which the recipient doesn’t care one whit about.  I posit that the unsubscribe information falls into that category.  It may be useful from a backend perspective to ensure compliance and such, but not something the end user really needs to see (at least not the vast majority of the time).  As “unsubscribe” in general is only seldomly used, it is typically redundant and would be better suited being hidden from routine daily view (a 3 part - Show sender/recipient only/show some extended headers (like unsubscribe)/show full headers would be a way to do this as an example).

As for “not working for me”… eM Client 6 is the best email client I’ve used since MS integrated that gawdawful ribbon into Outlook.  Tried 7.x when it was first released, but quickly moved back after experiencing several issues with it, including the need to enable All Folders (which I will respond to in a seperate post).  Kept using 6.x but began experiencing major OAuth issues with it after a Google (API?) update that I never got resolved.  Ended up moving to Linux about that time, so never found out if I could get it working again or not.  Recently, due to kernel driver issues with my new AMD CPU/GPU laptop, I migrated back to Windows and found that 8.x had been released.  Decided to give it a try before trying to see if 6.x would work.  For the most part, I really like 8.x, and while there are a few UI things I don’t care for (e.g. rolling the menu into a single button instead of spread across the top), I really do like it.   It is a very slick piece of software that integrates email, contacts, and calendar as good as any client I’ve ever used.  The header area showing “unsubscribe” is mostly just an annoyance, not a deal breaker.  I came here looking for a solution to get rid of it, nothing more.  I am sure that it is something I could come to ignore with extended use.

Notes:   I will use the term “download” here mostly as it is a common vernacular, even though I know it isn’t always the case and with imap the mail largely exists and is being used server side.  For my points, it doesn’t matter how mail gets cached or if just the headers or if the full body gets synced.  I understand how Google works and their use of tags and labels.  I will also use “folders” for common reference, even though in the Google World they are simply tags/labels and the folders are virtual constructs.  The end effect is that they behave and can largely be manipulated as if they are folders.  That out of the way… 

_ It is demonstrably false that All Folders has to be visible to imap in order for an email client to function with Gmail. _

Em Client <=6.x and virtually every other email client I have ever installed (and I have installed just about every one that is compatible with Windows or Linux and a bunch for Android) does not need for All Folder to be visible to imap in order to function.  I have had zero issues setting up or using almost any mail clients with All Folders hidden to imap.  I believe I have only ever run across one other who required it and they are rather shady (they are subscription based and route all incoming and outgoing emile through their own servers… and please do NOT think I am alluding to Em Client being shady…I am not).

Requiring imap to be available to imap  was a  new  requirement that eM Client introduced in version 7, and continues in 8, and one that did not exist in versions 6 or earlier.

Google gives you the option to “Show” and “Hide” individual folders for both web display and for imap, including the All Mail folder.  If you choose Hide from Web, it simply puts the folder in a drop down away from standard view (still there though).  If you choose Hide from imap, it DOES NOT expose the folder to imap in any way.

The way eM Client works is that it syncs All Folders, Trash, and Spam, then sorts everything into folders client side based on the labels that Google has assigned them.  They way (virtually) every other email client works (including eM Client <=6) is that they sync the individual imap folders (labels) the user has chosen to “show to imap”, keeping them sorted the same as server side.  

Here is how the privacy, bandwidth, and performance issues work…
By syncing just the folders you need on the client, you download and cache less mail (bandwidth and performance) and can avoid downloading the mail from folders you don’t want to have present on the client (privacy). 

While it is true that any single given message is only downloaded once no matter how many folders (labels) it exists in, it is not true that is has to be download to begin with, as long as All Mail folder is hidden from imap.

Many people have several aliases and rules for email.  
Common aliases:  [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]  
Common rules:  move all Amazon email to “Amazon” folder, move Usenet email to “News” folder, etc.

Let’s say you have an NSFW alias… You can sort all mail which are addressed to [email protected] so it is in its own server side folder and then hide that folder from imap.  As long as you don’t use Google’s web mail, there would be no presence of it on the system… unless you expose “All Folder” to imap.  With (almost) every other email client other than Em 7/8 (including Em Client <=6), there would be no way for the mail to ever end up on, or be exposed to, the client.  With Em 7/8, it would be download to the client, as that mail will all exist in the All Mail folder.  Typically, email clients cache email for offline use and cache passwords for convenience, which, when combined, can lead to privacy concerns.

A personal example:  If I setup my mail client to download for offline use just my typical “show imap” folders, my total download of email from Google to my client is around 1GB.  With All Folders set to show in imap, the download size is around 3.5GB.  Most of the extra space is an archive folder and a bunch of rarely used listserv emails that do not need on my client.  With eM Client >6, all of these get downloaded via the All Folders.  This eats up extra bandwidth, can cause performance issues (increasing the size of the DB by 10’s of thousands of extra email), and privacy issues (in my case it is mostly just various Jeep or Linux listserv emails, but for some it could be stuff they would want to keep from the Boss, Wife, Kids, etc.).

Another reason I don’t want All Folder to be exposed to imap is that my preferred Android email client will pick it up and sync it.  While an extra 2 1/2 GB on my laptop isn’t a big deal, that is very significant on a smartphone.

“The defacto standard for email is to place unsubscribe information in the footer area”.
No this is not the case.

“Personally, outside of shady companies/groups, I have not run across any email which contains a valid header unsubscribe link but not a in-body-of-the-email one.”
All GNOME mailing lists contain the unsubscribe header, but not a link in the message. Most other big tech lists I belong to, inducing those for other email clients, do not contain an unsubscribe link in the message body. I guess some of the biggest legitimate tech companies in the world are shady by your definition.

“It is demonstrably false that All Folders has to be visible to imap in order for an email client to function with Gmail.”
OK. Go to the web interface for GMail and disable the All Mail folder for IMAP. Go back to your mail client and see what happens.

“Em Client <=6.x and virtually every other email client I have ever installed (and I have installed just about every one that is compatible with Windows or Linux and a bunch for Android) does not need for All Folder to be visible to imap in order to function”
Yes, they do. Some might not display the folder, but that is the folder they sync with the server. If you have a problem with that better to approach Google about changing the model they use.

"I believe I have only ever run across one other who required it "
As far as I know Google is the only provider using that model, though I heard rumors. Would be interesting to know who else might have adopted that.

"Requiring imap to be available to imap  was a  new  requirement that eM Client introduced in version 7"
IMAP was always required to access IMAP. There is no other way, never has been, never will be.

"They way (virtually) every other email client works (including eM Client <=6) is that they sync the individual imap folders (labels) the user has chosen to “show to imap”, keeping them sorted the same as server side.  "
No they don’t.

“While it is true that any single given message is only downloaded once no matter how many folders (labels) it exists in, it is not true that is has to be download to begin with, as long as All Mail folder is hidden from imap.”
Again, disable the All Mail folder in your Google settings and see what you get.

For Gmail accounts setup using the Automatic Setup in eM Client, there is no password stored on the computer. But even if there was, that really means nothing as the password would only be used once no matter how many folder were or were not synced.

You are right, not just “shady” companies.  My thinking when I said that was in reference the to bulk email to a typical user, not to tech types.  The vast majority of mailing list email coming to the typical user is going to be social (facebook, twitter, etc.), retail (grocery, clothing, pet, hardware, etc.), special interest (forums like this one and various hobbies), entertainment (Netflix, Pandora, etc.), work/school related, utilities/banking/loan, and consumer facing tech (Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, etc.).   When I said “shady”, I was thinking of Infomercial type of places and “Super Duper Lost Cost Pet Food Warehouse R’us” type of places that people find of page 5+ of a Google search and who is offering product for a quarter of what most retailers are (well, them… and XM Radio).

People who are subscribing to tech lists should be able to figure out how to find the unsubscribe info in the header.  For everyone else, I am very much of the belief that the “de facto” standard is this it is included in the information in the body of the email.  

You can look at this forum’s thread subscription email… each post has an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of each email it sends out.  Why?  Because that is the defacto standard and where the vast majority of typical users are going to look in order unsubscribe from the thread when they are following it.

The very fact the eM Client is (almost, if not completely) alone in showing this header information in such a prominent location says a lot (I know…you of of the “pioneering” camp).

Maybe I am WAY off on who the target audience is for eM Client, but my guess is that most users are not on tech lists, especially not GNOME ones.  My guess would would that  the bulk of eM Client’s target audience more the business/SOHO user who is looking for an Outlook alternative which contains email, contact, and calendar integration;  rather than your Pine and Mutt fans.  And I have to say that it is comical that your brought up GNOME.  They are infamous for their religious like zeal in following IETF and RFC standards, no matter how outdated or unfriendly those happen to be.   Their forums are full of conversations (arguments) with people complaining they are are not following “de facto” standards in order to follow UNIX “de jure” ones.  Between the Column based or hard carriage return line wrapping (over dynamic wrapping) and the old style way they use  “>” in replies, you can always tell when you are having a and back & forth conversation with someone using a UNIX or GNOME rather than a modern client.


As for “All Mail”…
I keep All Mail hidden from IMAP.  Always have.  The only times I have ever needed to turn it on was when I installed eM Client 7.x (turned it back off when going back to 6.x), and again when I installed eM Client 8.x

If you have “All Folders” unchecked for IMAP for eM Client 7/8, no mail will show up in you inbox at all.  You are right about that.

For (virtually) everyone else… Google with authenticate just find and will display all IMAP folders (labels) you have checked to “display in imap” in gmail.  They will NOT show All Folder if it is unchecked, nor will they display any other folder that is unchecked to display in imap.

Outlook, Evolution, Thunderbird, K9, eM Client <=6.x, Claws, Sylpheed, The Bat!, and the Google Gmail Android email client (although it has been many versions since I tested that last one)… just to name a few which work just fine with Gmail without All Folders set to Display in IMAP.

I am not sure where you are getting that it is a requirement set by Google.  It is not.  As I stated, it is demonstrably false and you can easily test it by turning off displaying your All Folder in IMAP and installing any of the mail clients I just listed… they will all work just fine.  

"I believe I have only ever run across one other who required it "
I was actually referring to one other CLIENT who requires All Folders to be shown to IMAP in order for the client to work properly with Gmail.  I believe it was MailBird who also requires All Folders to display in IMAP in order to work, but then again, they also route all of your mail through their their own servers first.

You may be correct that from a technical standpoint that a mail client may still sync to All Folders rather than individual one (I am honestly not 100% sure on this point, it has been awhile since I read Google tech sheet).  Functionally; however,  a client cannot access “all mail” if that option is turned off to display.  A client is only able to access mail labels which is in folders (or technically…labled) that is checked to display in IMAP.  So, while Google keeps all mail in just three folders and displays by in other locations via tags/labels, functionally it is all done of their backend and they in no way have it set as a requirement to show All Folders for IMAP to work properly.   

As a matter of fact, “Inbox” is the only folder Gmail has that cannot be unchecked to display in IMAP and Gmail is setup to work just fine via IMAP  with ONLY Inbox being checked.  I regularly run spam traps this way (typically I use Thunderbird or Claws for this and display  the inbox only, as there is no need to waste bandwidth downloading spam (or All) folders when all I really want to see is what legitimate & spam mail is getting through to the Inbox).

A typical Gmail account without new user created folder - 

  • INBOX - Show in IMAP (checked and greyed out)
  • Starred - show hide Show in IMAP  
  • Snoozed - show hide Show in IMAP  
  • Important - show hide Show in IMAP  
  • Chats - show hide Show in IMAP  
  • Sent - show hide Show in IMAP  
  • Scheduled - show hide show if unread Show in IMAP 
  • Drafts - show hide show if unread Show in IMAP  
  • All Mail - show hide Show in IMAP 
  • Spam - show hide show if unread Show in IMAP  
  • Trash - show hide Show in IMAP 

"Requiring imap to be available to imap  was a  new  requirement that eM Client introduced in version 7" 
This was a typo on my part… it should have read:
"Requiring All Folders to be available to imap  was a  new  requirement that eM Client introduced in eM Client version 7"
eM Client version 6 worked just fine with gmail without the need for All Folder to be set to display in IMAP.  

I am not sure what you are referencing with regards to the password and Automatic Setup in you last paragraph.    Google has moved all but completely to OAuth2 and I completely agree with what you say there is true.

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I totally agree with John. Displaying the “unsubscribe” option at the top of every email is incredibly unnecessary and a very bad design practice. It should be totally optional and customizable, since it is very distracting and not at all a common/frequent action by a user. It is not “handy” at all, and anyone who wants to unsubscribe from an email list can do so by clicking the link at the bottom, or any other convenient location. This is unbelievably bad design on EM Client’s part, and can easily be changed, and definitely should be. Why should I keep seeing the “unsub” option on every single email from a list to which I have been subscribed for years? It would be funny if it weren’t so annoying.

Was this uncutomizable option ever requested by a number of users? I highly doubt it…

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