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Help How to move email from combined inbox to folders

G

GraemePSmith

Lurker
Howdy folks
Just got my LG G2 yesterday and can't find an option that I used all the time on my iPhone. I'm using a D802 international version of the G2 with Jelly Bean, and have loaded my 5 different email accounts into the stock standard email application.

I like to file my emails away in email folders, particularly if they are from clients or have other information I like to keep. On the iPhone there were two ways of doing this: I could either click on an icon while reading the email which allowed me to move it to another folder - OR - from the main email screen I could select multiple emails and then move them together to a folder.

I'm having two problems:

1. In the COMBINED inbox, I can' see any option to move my emails to another folder - nor can I see one when I'm viewing the email. However - if I go to a specific inbox for one of my accounts, then I can either long press on the email and see a "Move To" option, or I can go into the email, select the menu and see the "Move To" option.

Any ideas how I could get the "Move To" option from the combined inbox please? It's a bit of a pain sometimes for me to have to try and guess which account a particular email might be in, and then have to move out of the combined inbox to find it and move it.

2. Second problem is that sometimes email comes into one account, but my files for that subject are in a different account. Over time I've moved most of them to Gmail. Even if I go into a specific account in the standard email app, select "Move To" - I can only see that account's folders. How would I move an email to the folders in a different account? Was a trivial exercise on my iPhone, so I guess I'm just doing something wrong here

All help appreciated!

Gra
 
I don't think you can. I can see what you want to do, and why -- and it makes sense.

The combined inbox is just a "view" of the all the inboxes of each email account set up on the phone. However, each email account is independent of each other, which is intuitively why you cannot move individual emails between accounts. That makes sense too.

I didn't realize that the iPhone could move email around between accounts. That's sort of neat, in a "I didn't miss the feature until I read elsewhere about it" kinda way. :)

Now, all that said -- what can be done for you? I can think of a couple cheesy ways involving rules and forwarding but it'd be messy/confusing. The closest I can see, appwise, is MailDroid (available in the Play Store), it has rules and can move emails automatically into folders and do a variety of things but I don't think even it can move emails between accounts. Normally, one doesn't want to do that (I couldn't think of a reason to, until I read your post). I'll keep my eyes peeled, but hopefully someone else has run into this and can post a solution.

Edit: ProfiMail Go seems to have some interesting features too, have a look at that one in the Play Store.
 
Thanks @Klotar for taking the time to understand my issue.

I still haven't found a way to move email from folders in one email account to folders in a different email account. It's a standard feature of any desktop email client, and was no issue at all on the native iPhone client. I didn't even stop to think that Android apps wouldn't support this!

So far I've tried AquaMail, K9, Boomerang, Emoze, easyMail as well as the native client and have not had any success. Profi mail is next on my list, but I'd have to pay a subscription to find out if it works!

If anyone out there knows of an easier way to achieve this, or can recommend an email program that can DEFINITELY do this, please let me know!

G
 
I cant follow that logic. Moving email within folders of one account is one thing, but logically between folders of different accounts? Sorry disennting opinion here.

If you want to do it, find a client that will allow you to create rules to forward your email of certain criteria upon reception to another account.

If you could do it on an iPhone, I would think THAT was an exception to the rule...
 
It would work with POP3 accounts where all the email is downloaded to the device but I don't see it working with IMAP where the emails are stored on the server. One solution would be to forward all your email to gmail and manage it from that account. Gmail has features to work with that.
 
Thanks stef7 and bberryhill0. I can think of ways around the issue - such as forwarding all my other email to a single account and then moving all my other folders across to that one, or perhaps selectively setting up rules to forward on certain types of email to a particular account, but it seems like a complicated approach to something that's should be straightforward. I use all my email accounts all the time for various different things, so don't really want to forward everything to a single GMail account - especially just because my super-dooper much acclaimed Android phone can't support something!

Stef7 was questioning the logic of what I want - but it's quite simple. So for example, I recently applied for a few jobs from my hotmail account and filed the responses in a folder in hotmail called "Jobs". Then I found that a few companies were blocking my hotmail as spam so I switched to using Gmail for those companies. I still would like to file that correspondence in the same original "Jobs" folder on my Hotmail account - and when I'm sitting at my PC, I can just drag and drop without worrying at all about which account the email discussion is taking place.

I'd just like to be able to do the same on my Android phone to save these messages clogging my inbox.

If anyone out there is using an email client that will enable this - please let me know!

G
 
I didn't mean to insult at all, just that, justifying it because it exists on the iPhone is, well, not justifying it IMHO. :D

Intuitively, one would want to see the full routing of a message one is responding to and one would not want to be doing this sort of trickery. Having something hit one account, I would think one would want to see in the trace that it was forwarded to the account you are currently accessing. You'd want to respond using the proper email account wouldn't you?

I admit, what I would think is logical, is not what you think is logical, nor really beneficial to you.

If a "Combined" or "Unified Inbox" like in K9 is insufficient for your needs (and I guess it is, because you want to aggregate stuff in particular places), then about all I might suggest beyond forwarding email with rules, is to write a few of the developers and ask them if they'd create the feature, or ask them if they know of an Android Email program that will do what you want. I would hope they'd be sympathetic.

Maybe someone reading this thread will have encountered such a program.
 
Reading up on how the desktop clients do this, I think I see how the iPhone does it, and have thought of a way to possibly help you do what you want on your G2. Not quite, but maybe close enough (only you can judge that).

First, a desktop client, like Thunderbird, pulls in the emails from your various email accounts (duh) into a single "place", with a way to differentiate between the accounts it came from. When you move email from one IMAP account to another, it deletes it from one and creates it in the other. Nothing new or exciting here.

Android email clients, as we have discovered and discussed here, pull in various email accounts too, but keeps them separate. This is our problem.

We want to avoid complex forwarding rules to move mail around. And we also want to avoid forwarding all mail from each account into one. Check.

What we might try though, is using one "main" gmail account. Gmail can also retrieve email from other email accounts. By allowing this new Gmail account to be a hub for your other email accounts, I think you can use this to move mail around between accounts (where Gmail will do the syncing between that account and the other email accounts).

Basically, you would still keep all your email accounts on your phone but turn off sync. You would do this instead of removing them so that you can still SEND emails out from any of your accounts without issues and so no one can tell you aren't sending from your isp.com domain (important to some people).

Your new "main" gmail account would be set to sync to your G2. It should bring down mail from all of your other accounts. You should be able to move emails around if I understand correctly (because as far as your G2 is concerned, it is really only moving mail within folders of the same gmail account), and in turn, gmail (serverside) would sync those changes back to the original source accounts (for IMAP at least, probably not POP3. Not sure about Exchange either).

Note -- I have not tried this. But sounds good on paper.
 
Thanks @Klotar for putting some thought into this.

I'd reached a similar thought earlier today, partly because of my struggle with this new phone, but also because I've just bought a Chromebook and was vaguely wondering how to access all of my different email accounts without having to open up each account in a Chrome tab of its own (as there is no Chromebook email client). I'd been deliberating whether to dual boot it into Ubuntu and then just install Thunderbird, but I decided that wasn't going to help my phone issue.

So I've been setting up my Gmail account as a sort of master account today, fetching in email from all the other accounts via POP. This then lets me see everything in Gmail - either in a browser or on the Gmail app on my G2.

I don't think I need to do exactly as you suggest, because I've set up Gmail such that I use the "Send To" function to send out email so that it appears it's coming from the various accounts. If I reply to an email in my Gmail inbox that's been pulled in from another account, the default address is already set to that of the other account - so all OK there, and I probably don't need to maintain all the other accounts just to send mail.

The area where I've struggled is at the bottom part of your email. As far as I've been able to work out today, Gmail can only access my accounts in as POP accounts. This is OK for mail - I just make sure that it's deleted from the original server so there are no duplicated. But it doesn't let me access my folders from Gmail or save emails back there. If I could set up as IMAP, then your solution would work.

My workaround could be to use my desktop client (which IS IMAP) to move all my folders to Gmail, meaning that everything would then be all in one place. But... IMAP on Gmail would be neater if I could get it to work.

G
 
Hmmm... in my Gmail settings (using browser), it says "access Gmail from other clients using IMAP" (3rd area in the Forwarding and POP/IMAP section), which I assumed to mean the 'main' gmail account would talk to the other email accounts using IMAP.

Elsewhere, it does say though "Note: This setting is not available while using the basic HTML view of Gmail. To enable IMAP, use the standard view instead."

As for my babble at the bottom of my previous reply, I do use fancy forwarding rules [that I wanted to avoid when suggesting your solution] so often I do need to reply from an address other than my main one (my emails don't retain the original To:, so my From address would be the main gmail account, which I don't want. (Well, I set it up years ago so I've left it this way).
 
Yes, I think that the "access Gmail from other clients using IMAP" is for when you are setting up a desktop client (like Thunderbird) and want to use IMAP. I've got it enabled anyway.

In the tab called "Accounts and Import" there is only the option to "Check mail using ...POP3". I did try putting IMAP settings into the setup, but it just rejected them... Probably sensible, because it effectively just pulls new email off another server - however this won't keep the other folders in sync in the way that IMAP would.

So I guess I will have to manually move my folders over if I go down this route!

Still debugging and assessing. Other drawbacks is that my historic Sent Mails will all be in the original folders, and I don't really want to import my huge hotmail contacts list into Gmail and then have it spill onto my phone!
 
Dang, I see that POP3 requirement now in a couple more articles I've now read.

I'm out of ideas -- hope you find a good solution, let us know how you made out.
 
Reading the above discussion, I now finally understand why moving mails between folders in different accounts is not straight forward on droid. However, I also want to be able to do this. I plan to go tablet only soon, but without the possibility to move mails between accounts it will be quite a challenge to keep my GTD system operational on all devices. Is there any progress on how to do this since March? (I hope you all are still following this thread)
 
I must admit I didn't give it much further thought. Like many here, I have dozens of email accounts (isp, gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc. etc.) but I trimmed it down to three. My isp email forwards to gmail, and my lesser-used emails forward to one of the other gmails. Then with rules and forwarding and aliases, I am able to maintain my emails to my satisfaction.

As mentioned up above, I set up all my emails on the G2 (not just the gmail ones) so that I could "Reply As" any of them. However, I do not sync any of these email accounts, just the three gmail accounts. It works for me, and because I have been using gmail before iPhones existed, over the years I've tweaked rules and forwarding so that my email takes little maintenance.

Now, to the original problem/issue. I haven't seen any new email clients released, nor any significant features blogged or articled with existing clients. Because of the Android system and the way it and gmail was designed, moving mail between accounts, while it might be possible via client ( i.e. delete the email from account A, add the email to account B ), it would be a significant development challenge I would think.
 
I ran across this thread while trying to find a useable Android email client.

GraemePSmith is not alone in needing to move email between accounts. I also have the need and am sorely disappointed I cannot find any clients on Android that do this. All of my desktop clients (Outlook, Thunderbird) can do this, as could my iPhone's IOS5,6 and 7 clients. In fact I think (sadly) Apple more fully understands the email user with their client. One of the main buttons below the message view is "move". It's as important as reply and delete.

I've been asking some Android devs to add it to their client. I've not heard back whether it's a technical limitation or not. I can't imagine it is, but then again, I'm fairly new to Android.

For those who must have some valid reasons (not that you need them - it's enough that WE need them ;)) here are two of many.

Say you have two accounts, one fast and nimble, always being used as your main account. I use my work Exchange account for that. Then I have my personal domain account using IMAP. My personal IMAP account is unlimited - my Exchange is not. I'll often use the Exchange account to receive larger items or emails that I need to reply to while at work (we can only send via our Exchange). However, I'll also want to move (or archive) these emails and attachments to my IMAP account. I can do that on every platform by my droid.

Also it's basically impossible to keep family, friends, work and aquaintances to always use the right email address. So, dad or brother sometimes sends an email to my work account. It used to be easy enough to move it over to my personal IMAP account without breaking any sweat. No longer, unlessI'm at the desktop.

For those who have not had this ability, I guarantee you that you would quickly feel the freedom and power such a simple feature can bring to your email world. :)
 
Hi Lefty, you say that on your iPhone iOS clients you can move mail between clients. On my iPad (iOS5 , yes it's an iPad1) with the native Mail app I cannot move between Exchange and Gmail. Which app are you using? If it can be done on iOS I might have to rethink my Android vs Apple preference and upgrade to a new iPad in stead.
 
Um, this VERY USEFUL feature appears in EVERY desktop email client. It's not just an IOS feature we want. And, btw, because something is in IOS doesn't mean it isn't useful. :)
 
ErwinDeBeer
On the old IOS5 email client I could move email between ACCOUNTS. It's not a client to client issue. I was only naming the clients That can do it. And yes, I could move email between my Imap and Exchange (probably google, too) accounts without a problem. I've not found a single Android client that will let you move email between accounts. This is silly. Every desktop client that exists (that I'm aware) allows moving email among accounts.
 
I can't believe that Android clients allow moving to imap folders, but not between accounts. Such a bummer. I am a longtime apple fan and decided to make the switch to android. It took quite a bit of persuading. Everything was going ok when I discovered this. I'm shocked that this problem isn't solved by any email client developer. I'm afraid I'm going to have to switch back. Big bummer!
 
Hi Guys, any luck on finding a client or solution to this?

This is actually a very important function, to add to @GraemPSmith 's reasons, here is another real reason why.

We are using an ISP email account for work. Recently work decided to change ISP/MailServers to a different one. This meant we still use the same email address, just different server. Two problems:
1. Previous email was IMAP, so when the IT lady set up and new account, she didn't give it a different name, just went in to my existing account and change the server credentials - email was reset and I lost around 3,000 emails. Took us two days to retrieve them. Luckily, I had some on my Android.

The second issue was, my android email stupid, I have over 720 emails in my sent folder in the old account, which I need to transfer to my new account before the old server switches off/deletes them - because once they're gone, they're gone. I need to copy these sent emails into my new account, same email address, different servers, different types (IMAP to POP3)

So to those who think it illogical, with all due respect, it is very logical to be seeking this function for more than one valid reason.

Cheers.
 
I too, have been looking for such an Android Email client. Sadly to no success.

For those folks who are wondering why this is such an issue, let me explain my case:

I have six active email accounts, and almost as many "dummy" accounts.
I maintain my own private IMAP Server, with a very organized folder structure.
My focus is to always move email when either completed, or answered, is then
moved into one of my folders, on my own IMAP Server.

This provides two very important benefits.
1. My email is then fully under my control, backups, deletions, etc. No email provider can effectively block my access to stored email, via an outage.
2. Legal protections. As the law is currently written, email that has been left on the server for longer than 180 days, is legally considered abandoned, and no search warrant is required for access. (source: http://www.aclu-md.org/uploaded_files/0000/0519/sb_924_-_communications_content.pdf)
With my own IMAP Server being under my own control, on my own property, any agency who would want my email would be legally required to get a warrant.

Now granted I'm not doing anything that would cause this to occur, but to be forewarned is to be forearmed!

I'm stunned and at a loss that as of today, I have not found an Android email client that can do this.
Especially since this feature has been in iOS since version 1.0 (I know I've own iPhones since the original.)
Not to mention the fact that EVERY email client for a desktop, be it Windows/Mac/Linux can do this.

If I do manage to find an android email client that can do this, I will report back, to this thread.

thanks for reading!
 
GraemePSmith said:
Howdy folks
Just got my LG G2 yesterday and can't find an option that I used all the time on my iPhone. I'm using a D802 international version of the G2 with Jelly Bean, and have loaded my 5 different email accounts into the stock standard email application.

I like to file my emails away in email folders, particularly if they are from clients or have other information I like to keep. On the iPhone there were two ways of doing this: I could either click on an icon while reading the email which allowed me to move it to another folder - OR - from the main email screen I could select multiple emails and then move them together to a folder.

I'm having two problems:

1. In the COMBINED inbox, I can' see any option to move my emails to another folder - nor can I see one when I'm viewing the email. However - if I go to a specific inbox for one of my accounts, then I can either long press on the email and see a "Move To" option, or I can go into the email, select the menu and see the "Move To" option.

Any ideas how I could get the "Move To" option from the combined inbox please? It's a bit of a pain sometimes for me to have to try and guess which account a particular email might be in, and then have to move out of the combined inbox to find it and move it.

2. Second problem is that sometimes email comes into one account, but my files for that subject are in a different account. Over time I've moved most of them to Gmail. Even if I go into a specific account in the standard email app, select "Move To" - I can only see that account's folders. How would I move an email to the folders in a different account? Was a trivial exercise on my iPhone, so I guess I'm just doing something wrong here

All help appreciated!

Gra
Click to expand...
BoiledEggs32 said:
I too, have been looking for such an Android Email client. Sadly to no success.

For those folks who are wondering why this is such an issue, let me explain my case:

I have six active email accounts, and almost as many "dummy" accounts.
I maintain my own private IMAP Server, with a very organized folder structure.
My focus is to always move email when either completed, or answered, is then
moved into one of my folders, on my own IMAP Server.

This provides two very important benefits.
1. My email is then fully under my control, backups, deletions, etc. No email provider can effectively block my access to stored email, via an outage.
2. Legal protections. As the law is currently written, email that has been left on the server for longer than 180 days, is legally considered abandoned, and no search warrant is required for access. (source: http://www.aclu-md.org/uploaded_files/0000/0519/sb_924_-_communications_content.pdf)
With my own IMAP Server being under my own control, on my own property, any agency who would want my email would be legally required to get a warrant.

Now granted I'm not doing anything that would cause this to occur, but to be forewarned is to be forearmed!

I'm stunned and at a loss that as of today, I have not found an Android email client that can do this.
Especially since this feature has been in iOS since version 1.0 (I know I've own iPhones since the original.)
Not to mention the fact that EVERY email client for a desktop, be it Windows/Mac/Linux can do this.

If I do manage to find an android email client that can do this, I will report back, to this thread.

thanks for reading!
Click to expand...


THANKS FOR THE POST. ANY LUCK BoiledEggs32?
 
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