I've been using Apple's Mail.app as my primary mail client ever since Thunderbird gave up the ghost about 6 months ago. No, I don't remember what the problem was with Thunderbird.
Lately, and with increasing regularity, messages which I have read get marked unread when I'm off looking in another folder. When this happens, I have to mark them as read multiple times before they stay marked that way.
I'm not sure if this is a problem with the client or with the server, but it happens on two different mail servers, one of which is running Exchange, and the other is running Cyrus imapd, so I tend to lean towards blaming the client.
I've been unable to find reference to anyone else having this problem, but it's pretty hard to know what to search for.
Anyone else seen this?
I did have the _exact_ same problem.
I don't remember the specific steps I went through to get rid of the problem, but it had to do with one of the plugins i had installed.
I think I fixed it by modifying one of the options in the PGP plugin.
Hmm. That's interesting. I am running a pgp plugin. But none of the options look remotely related to handling of marking messages read. But I'll experiment. Thanks.
[...] Rich Bowen remarks that he sees Apple Mail flip recently read messages randomly back to unread status. I am seeing this too and it bugs me. [...]
Apple Mail queues those actions and if something else is happening (slow mailbox, large email download, etc), the "mark as read" action is only done later. The problem is that when you select another folder and then come back to the first one, Apple Mail doesn't relate the queued action to the message, and still shows the message as unread, which is partially correct because the action wasn't yet performed.
Open up the Activity viewer, mark a message as read, click on a folder, click back on the original, and wait. If the message doesn't change to read when the activity stops, then you have a problem.
I also had lots of problem like this with Courier IMAP, due to slow folder index and other stuff. Then I've installed Dovecot (which compiles nicely on Mac OS X), and had no problems anymore.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
This bug has been plaguing me for ages and your post lead me to find the workaround: http://www.sente.ch/software/GPGMail/English.lproj/FAQ.html
So, shame on me/us for not reading the fine manual ;-)
More info can be found on http://www.sente.ch/Lists/gpgmail-users/Message/847.html
Leander
Opposite Problem,
I hope I'm not to late to look for answers. I have had the opposite problem. Messages come in an are automatically marked as read even though I haven't selected them. Usually I leave a few the message as unread, and then when new mail arrives, the old "still unread" messages are then turned "read" and with only what just came in now unread. Sometimes as soon as new mail comes in, it is marked as read.
It is a real bother as sometimes I miss unread email because I use the visual cues to see if I have missed any. I rebuilt my mailbox but it has not helped. If anyone has any ideas, I'm open to trying them.
Ryan