Hey, sounds like your Thunderbird didn't sync with the android yet, could that be? https://www.pep.security/docs/general_information.html#pp-sync
In the subject of your posting you're also mentioning lots of "ignore mails" - this could actually be the reason why the sync doesnt want to start.
To make sure, we could use the “repair folder” option in Thunderbird: right-mouse-click on the folder “Inbox” => “Properties” => Tab “General Information” => on the bottom right: “Repair Folder”. Maybe do this with any subfolders that might be there, too.
Additionally it is useful (but not necessary) to deactivate the automatic checks for new messages during the “repair folder” process: right-mouse-click on the account => “Settings” => first entry “Server Settings” => in the third settings disable the checks.
Info: With this process the whole Inbox will be re-downloaded again. We recommend to do this in a stable network or rather not in a network with data-plan (e.g. mobile): lots of data could be used up! Sync messages arent deleted [EN, SOURCE]
To sync please make sure that both devices are in the same timezone / have the same time :)
Just to add the night before i added the pEp app to my 2nd phone and when i sent messages from the device to my email they would decrypt on the same device, the other devices with pEp did not decrypt. Last night they all got a prompt to sync up as your link describes. It appeared to me that somehow they just needed time to recognise and sync to the other related devices (by email address).
Anyway I will take a good look through the link to the doc you sent me. That will help answer most questions i think. I am still getting my head around using the iOS & Android apps, they work quite diff and i cannot seem to find some config/settings. Lets see what i find in the doc though.
Regarding the "ignore emails" I will give that a go later, but just to clarify i will attach a screenshot. The thunderbird spent the best part of an hour last night syncing up, these emails are still occurring now as you can see below. I just turned on thunderbird and received 2 more emails so it seems pretty likely its being created by thunderbird as you suggested even after the sync went through..
A couple questions i have not found the answer to on the link;
1/ i re-installed pEp app on my wifes iPhone. It had all the info, however it has the old password for gmail. I could not seem to get it to go through the login process again so i had to delete user and add again from the beginning. It seems the only option is to delete the account and start again, is there a more simple process? I checked the pEp for iOS notes and could only find the first first option in there.
2/ My android pEp app by default allows me to delete individual messages, however for some reason the iPhone only allows archive, and i cannot find any docs/switches to change this. My gmail is set to delete not archive so it should not be getting confused there. Anyhow my iPhone and android is using the same email address for gmail so i would have expected like for like.
Exactly, it sometimes takes a while till they "find" each other.
Yes, they are quite different which has different reasons - mainly cause they have different histories: The Android App was forked some years back from great K9 (all credits go to the wonderful maintainer of K9 <3) and the iOS App was developed from scratch. Additionally we try to fulfil the prerequisites from Apple/Google per each device-culture. Generally we aim to adjust them over time.
Those emails are needed for the Sync Process - as you might already have learned pEp is using your own mailbox to sync between devices; this is our solution for NOT including any clouds and other third party infrastructure and such.
For this the pEp Apps all create a folder named "pEp" where those mails that transport the sync infos dissappear into and get deleted within a few minutes. It seems that that folder didnt get created in your THunderbird, so the easiest is to just create it manually. The uppercase E is important here, so it have to be namend exactly like that: "pEp". The "repair folder" process might also lead to the generation of such a folder, but I am not totally sure. Please report ;)
Gmail forces to use OAuth2 for login. As you describe, this works fine with the initial login. Also there is no need to reinstall pEp for passewort change. You can trigger the OAuth2 process again in Settings => Accout Setting => OAuth2 Reautorisierung
Sorry I still got confused here :D I myself am not a gmail user (who would have guessed ;)) but I've learned that gmail doesnt allow to delete anything, only archiving. Thats why you can delete any other messages in the pEp-Apps, but not any messages within the gmail account. If you found a way to be "allowed" by gmail to delete messages ("My gmai is set to delete not archive"), we'd be very interested to get to know more about this!
Ok this was a cool way to respond, i will give it a try....
Android - Ok, well after another day of playing around i definitely think the android app is very useable and K9 has done a fantastic job. There are a few features that i am still figuring out, for example;
The account pic (icon) against the emails. Sometimes they are just a coloured letter, other times it displays my gmail pic, other times it shows my pic from mac contacts, but these are all there briefly (2-5 secs) then revert to the colour letter. I need to speak to apple first i think to figure out how to best configure my display pic in mac contacts vs gmail account, then see what effect that has on the pEp app.
iOS - With respect to the pics here they are not consistent, i think its to do with my contacts in my iphone (its a new phone) are not synced properly, i will resolve with apple tomorrow and see if that fixes the confusion. Im sure between diff profile pics in gmail vs mac ( and then if mac contacts dont sync properly) I am bound to have some odd things happen.
Ok i have not performed this yet as i have added a few more gmail accounts to my thunderbird and its been over 2 hours and its still running the download so i will try tomorrow.
What i can say is that it appears that the messages are leaving now, they can take upwards of 10min to leave my folder. I only now realised that I cannot see these on my mobile devices, so they are working fine and i assume thunderbird is also working fine, albeit a bit slow atm.
Regarding the folder pEp that takes these messages, where should that be located in thunderbird? Should i see this in each email account subfolder? Under Local Folders? or in my Applications>package content (for MacOS). I searched all these and could not find the "pEp" folder. I checked to doc link also and did not see it detailed exactly where it should be located?
Thanks, i missed this one when i was looking through that section.
Ok so looks like i can add some value here, maybe.....
So to clarify firstly, gmail via the browser offers users the ability to both delete or archive, see attach
Secondly my android phone allows me to delete messages from my gmail account as one would expect.
Now in my iPhone i have the same gmail email account installed in my pEp. If you go to settings>mail>Accounts>Gmail>Accounts>Advanced you then get the below options, by default apple always has it set to archive, which is quite annoying i think.
Anyway this seems only to apply to the "Apple Mac Mail app" as i changed it just now on my new phone and it did not fix the issue in the pEp app.
So within the iOS pEp app when you viewing a message the archive is the only option you have. No delete.
However if you use the Edit option from the folder, ie the inbox then you have the ability to delete all/selected messages.
I have no idea how to build an app, but i assume amending this option between delete/archive may be possible is iOS. Either by adding the option within Settings>pEp or maybe even just by adding the trash to the email page along with the existing archive button.
Anyway i guess thats something that can be investigated further in the future. For me i can still delete i just have to do it via the Edit button.
wow, thanks for so many insights. If I figure it right lets wait what you investigations on the pics bring out, meanwhile I'll quickly reply to that question
Its a subfolder directly below the Inbox - if its not being created automatically just create the folder manually, called "pEp" (upper case E is important) and then lets hope those mails disappear in there from then on.
The gmail-delete issue is quite interesting, thanks for that insights and all the screenshots! I am trying to investigate further why the app behaves like this. Thanks!
Ok, yes i have found the folders in my thunderbird now. They must be virtual folders in thunderbird as they dont appear in my mac mail as if it was just a "new folder". Any way thats fine and they do disappear although each time i open thunderbird i get about 5-6 and they hang around along time..
I have re-installed pEp on my android about 4 times now in the last 24 hours and spent most of the day working with a Samsung engineer. It seems Samsung released an update that stopped the ability to make calls if your VoLTE was disabled... He really screwed the pooch.....
Anyway i am getting quite inconsistent results now between my devices for their security level, with the same accounts... I will leave it a few days and see if the sync settles things.
If your Mac is also on pEp there should be such a folder, too. Maybe also create it manually?
Please try the "repair folder" thing I described further above in my first posting - those mails should not be in your sight at no times :) Repairing the folder should fix that issue.
As far as I know pEp doesnt sync the trust (which results into the security levels with the colors) yet among devices, so you might need to re-trust such recipients per device manually.
