I've been reading some web forums on e-mail clients, like for K9 on
Android where users complain they were forced to 15-minute minimum mail
poll intervals. Some users don't have IMAP servers that support PUSH,
so they rely on very short poll intervals to react on e-mails within a
very short time they remain viable (e.g., 2FA codes that expire, job
contracts sent to a list of freelancers where the first to respond gets
the job). The users thought a new version of K9 had implemented a
change to 15 minutes between mail polls from the prior version that
allowed down to 1-minute polls. The conclusion was that Android 11 had
a restriction that apps were not allowed to poll servers at less than 15
minute intervals.

When I check IMAP PUSH, it only works in clients on the Inbox folder.
If the server moved a new message into the Junk folder, PUSH isn't used
on that folder for the client to see a new message show up there. I can
get 2FA codes via e-mail that end up in the Junk folder, and those codes
expire, and often far shorter than 15 minutes. I cannot whitelist the
2FA codes, because the sender is unknown to let me add them to a
server-side rule trying to keep them out of the Junk folder. Just
because I'm trying to log into a site that issues a 2FA code doesn't
mean that is the host name that sends the code. Besides, user-defined
rules are exercised AFTER the server has already applied its spam
filtering, so user-defined rules are ran too late. The false positive
has already been moved into Junk, so it isn't in the Inbox folder when
the rules get ran. One of my e-mail accounts has a Safe Senders
whitelist which overrides the server's spam filtering, but other
accounts have no such whitelist that is effected before the server's
spam filtering.

Does Android 11 have a limit (which seems unpublished) that IMAP apps
cannot poll at shorter than 15-minute intervals? That would suck.

VanguardLH wrote:

> When I check IMAP PUSH, it only works in clients on the Inbox folder.
> If the server moved a new message into the Junk folder, PUSH isn't used
> on that folder for the client to see a new message show up there. I can
> get 2FA codes via e-mail that end up in the Junk folder, and those codes
> expire

When I ran my own Dovecot server, IMAP worked properly, K9 was set to
never poll, and set for push notify on 1st class folders, inbox was a
1st class folder for dislay and push purposes, I got 'instant'
notifications, life was good.

Two things have changed since then, I use MS365 instead of Dovecot, and
Android has got more involved in battery saving. I allow K9 to be
active all the time (it shows as such on the notification shade with the
warning it may eat battery).

Notifications often seem to not be "instant" now, can't put my finger on
when it changed, I can frequently open my phone to see that it has
received new email within the past couple of minutes, yet I didn't get a
notification.

Other times picking up the phone seems to trigger it to check email
(even though polling is off) and there are new messages it hasn't
noticed until then.

I *want* it to notify me ASAP, I don't care if it eats more battery.

Andy Burns wrote:

> Notifications often seem to not be "instant" now

Of have done various tests this morning, the last few of which I left
the phone locked, but within earshot/eyeshot. I sent it an email and
just left it, 6 minutes later I got a notification, I didn't unlock the
display, just sent it another email, wondering how many minutes would
elapse for it to do another notification, it arrived and notified
immediately, and the same a third time.

So it now seems to be doing what I want, when it wasn't doing it half an
hour ago. I'll leave it idle for a while (I think I have it set for 24
minutes) and retry.

Andy Burns wrote:

> I'll leave it idle for a while (I think I have it set for 24 minutes)
> and retry.

The phone has been idle for an hour, sitting undisturbed on a bedside
table (i.e. no body movement waking it). I sent another email and got
notified by K9 within seconds ...

Andy Burns wrote:
> The phone has been idle for an hour, sitting undisturbed on a bedside
> table (i.e. no body movement waking it).  I sent another email and got
> notified by K9 within seconds ...
This testing was all with Android 14 rather than 11 of course, I notice
a recent entry in the K9 changelog advising to enable "alarms and
reminders" for the app.

DAMN. Subject was meant to say "now 15", not "not 15". "t" and "w" are
2 keys apart, so not a fumble finger failure. Sometimes my fingers
don't do what I want them to do.

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> When I check IMAP PUSH, it only works in clients on the Inbox folder.
>> If the server moved a new message into the Junk folder, PUSH isn't used
>> on that folder for the client to see a new message show up there. I can
>> get 2FA codes via e-mail that end up in the Junk folder, and those codes
>> expire
>
> When I ran my own Dovecot server, IMAP worked properly, K9 was set to
> never poll, and set for push notify on 1st class folders, inbox was a
> 1st class folder for dislay and push purposes, I got 'instant'
> notifications, life was good.
>
> Two things have changed since then, I use MS365 instead of Dovecot, and
> Android has got more involved in battery saving. I allow K9 to be
> active all the time (it shows as such on the notification shade with the
> warning it may eat battery).
>
> Notifications often seem to not be "instant" now, can't put my finger on
> when it changed, I can frequently open my phone to see that it has
> received new email within the past couple of minutes, yet I didn't get a
> notification.
>
> Other times picking up the phone seems to trigger it to check email
> (even though polling is off) and there are new messages it hasn't
> noticed until then.
>
> I *want* it to notify me ASAP, I don't care if it eats more battery.

Same with me: I want it when I need it. If more battery power gets
consumed, that's the cost of using the phone. I've considered the
battery saving mode, but it's too much of a nuisance.

Guess it's more correct to say IMAP IDLE than IMAP Push. When you
connect via telnet, and I think even before you login (so not having to
figure out how to do OAUTH2 from the command line), you can issue the
capability command to get back a keyword list showing what features the
server supports. If IDLE is listed, the server supports IMAP IDLE.

Not all mail servers support IDLE. That's why some K9 users complained
about its latest version having 15 minutes minimum for a polling
interval, because without IDLE then polling has to be used. The answer
was Android 11 (might've even been foisted on 10) now had a 15-minute
minimum polling interval for battery power saving. Geesh, they added
the battery saver mode, so just add an option there regarding polling
interval just like you can add exceptions to what apps battery saving
won't get enforced upon.

E-mail was not intended to be an instant communications venue. That's
what chat clients are for. However, way too many senders assume
guaranteed delivery with e-mail (not true), assume it is secure although
not encrypted (like the 2FA security theater crap using insecure e-mail
pr insecure SMS to send codes to secure a login), assume delivery is
immediate (wrong), assume e-mail servers never get too busy, are down
due to maintenance or failure, the server is always reachable, and
assume their messages will never run afoul of server-side filtering,
assume cell phones are always powered up ready to go, and assume the
cell phone is near enough to a cell tower to get the text and the nearby
tower also contracts with the carrier the user contracts on their phone.

On 09.03.24 19:14, VanguardLH wrote:
> Same with me: I want it when I need it. If more battery power gets
> consumed, that's the cost of using the phone. I've considered the
> battery saving mode, but it's too much of a nuisance.

In that case "Push" won't probably work anymore.

--
"Manus manum lavat."

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

> Andy Burns wrote:
>
>> I'll leave it idle for a while (I think I have it set for 24 minutes)
>> and retry.
>
> The phone has been idle for an hour, sitting undisturbed on a bedside
> table (i.e. no body movement waking it). I sent another email and got
> notified by K9 within seconds ...

Yep, your e-mail provider supports IMAP IDLE. That doesn't wait for a
poll interval to detect new messages are available. Alas, many users
report IDLE isn't super-reliable. They get a new message in the Inbox
on the server, and they don't get notified in their client until the
next mail poll. It's a nice feature, but not 100% reliable. In
addition, the server can disconnect after 29 minutes, so it isn't
reestablished until the next mail poll.

https://joshdata.wordpress.com/2014/08/09/how-bad-is-imap-idle/

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2177, section 3.
The server MAY consider a client inactive if it has an IDLE command
running, and if such a server has an inactivity timeout it MAY log
the client off implicitly at the end of its timeout period. Because
of that, clients using IDLE are advised to terminate the IDLE and
re-issue it at least every 29 minutes to avoid being logged off.
This still allows a client to receive immediate mailbox updates even
though it need only "poll" at half hour intervals.

I don't remember seeing an IMAP IDLE capable client that lets you
configure when it times out an IDLE connect to disconnect and reconnect
to get another half hour before a timeout. Apparently K9 has a
24-minute timeout on IDLE connections hoping to avoid server-side IDLE
timeouts (assuming it has not been shortened on the server), but the
server can still decide to expire IDLE connections for other causes.
Plus, the network route between client and server may falter.

Alas, IMAP IDLE only works on the Inbox folder, not on other folders.
If the server's anti-spam filtering moved a message into your Junk
folder, you're reliant on mail polling to get notified of false
positives deposited in a non-Inbox folder. The false positive isn't in
your Inbox at any time, so IMAP IDLE won't detect you got the new
message.

You should have your e-mail client configured to do polling. If the
server supports IDLE, your client can get new messages in the Inbox very
quickly, but not in other folders. For the other folders, polling gets
used.

To what minimum interval can you configure K9 to poll? The latest
version has a minimum of 15 minutes, and why K9 users are complaining
about the longer poll interval. The old version let you set it down to
1 minute. I don't know if it was the Feb 29 update to 6.800 that
changed to the 15-min min poll interval, or a slightly older version
that changed the minimum.

I don't use K9, but was interested in hearing *Android* forces a minimum
polling interval to conserve battery power. Wonder if you exclude the
e-mail app if the min poll interval is not enforced, but that would be a
battery power saving setting, so what if you don't use battery saving
mode where exclusions wouldn't apply?

VanguardLH wrote:

> your e-mail provider supports IMAP IDLE. That doesn't wait for a
> poll interval to detect new messages are available.

Yes, except I had been finding there were times (e.g. the first 5 tests
I did today which didn't notify, and the one where it did notify, but
only after 6 minutes)

> Alas, many users report IDLE isn't super-reliable. They get a new
> message in the Inbox on the server, and they don't get notified in
> their client until the next mail poll.

Since I have poll disabled on inbox, I know that if I get notified, it
is from push.

> I don't remember seeing an IMAP IDLE capable client that lets you
> configure when it times out

K9 default IDLE is 24 minutes but can be altered (settings, account,
fetching, advanced)

> Alas, IMAP IDLE only works on the Inbox folder, not on other folders.

I really don't want notifications for spam thanks.

> You should have your e-mail client configured to do polling. If the
> server supports IDLE, your client can get new messages in the Inbox very
> quickly, but not in other folders. For the other folders, polling gets
> used.

You can probably use a combination of push on 1st class folders and
polling on 2nd class folders, I don't but it's a potentially useful
concept.

> To what minimum interval can you configure K9 to poll?

15 mins.

> I don't know if it was the Feb 29 update to 6.800 that
> changed to the 15-min min poll interval, or a slightly older version
> that changed the minimum.

Dunno, not been into settings for a while.

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

> I really don't want notifications for spam thanks.

Almost every 2FA e-mail sent to me ends up moved by the mail server's
filtering into my Junk folder. Nope, I cannot add them to a whitelist
or rule: from where the 2FA e-mail gets sent may not, and is often not,
the same as the site you were visiting (domains differ, the site is
contracting out the 2FA service), so I don't know who to add to a Safe
Senders whitelist (and not many e-mail providers have a Safe Sender
whitelist that is enforced before their spam filtering), and user
server-side rules are exercised AFTER server-side spam filtering. I've
gotten dentist appointments dumped into the Junk folder. Anyone sending
similar e-mails are often lumped together with other senders as bulk
mail that end up in the Junk folder.

I get very little spam. I do get a lot of false positives dumped by the
mail server into the Junk folder. My e-mail client can hide the Junk
folder until it has new messages when it jumps out to under the root
folder of the account to show me there are new messages. Lets me
collapse some of the folder tree to let me see more accounts and their
folders without having to scroll. For all those false positives moved
into the Junk folder by the server's filtering, and because IMAP IDLE
doesn't work on anything but the Inbox folder, I wouldn't know that the
2FA code arrived until the next scheduled poll. 2FA codes expire
sometimes after 15 minutes, but I've had some that expire in 5 minutes,
like for my bank login. I had to reduce the poll interval down to 1
minute to ensure I saw the 2FA e-mail show up in the Junk folder, open
it, copy the code, and paste into the web form. If I had a polling
interval of 15 minutes, I wouldn't notice the e-mail ended up in the
Junk folder until after the 2FA code already expired.

I get far more legit e-mails as false positives dumped into my Junk
folder than I get spam e-mails. I protect my true e-mail address by
using an aliasing e-mail server (AnonAddy since Spamgourmet died) to
dole out aliased addresses to unknown or untrusted senders. Even for
known senders, like my hardware store, I first give out an aliased
address. About 6 months later, if the alias wasn't abused, I update an
account with my true e-mail address, but sometimes I just continue
forward with the alias address. This is not an e-mail forwarding
service since replies can divulge your true e-mail address. An aliasing
service not only forwards to your true e-mail address, but also strips
out all your e-mail provider's headers on a reply to make the reply
looked like it was sourced from the aliasing service, and the aliasing
service will try to strip out any signature content with your true
e-mail address (but I never use signatures). Never trust anyone that
asks for your e-mail address. Give them an alias instead.

Oh, and those "aliases" that some e-mail providers allow aren't really
aliases. Prepending or appending some string to your username is super
easy to determine what is your real username. Plus those "aliases" are
still using your real e-mail account to send replies. Give out an
alias, see if it gets abused, and decide later whether to give your true
e-mail address, or keep using the alias. If an alias gets abused,
disable or kill it. No more shit comes through that alias. No having
make yet another disposable e-mail account each time you want another
alias or kill one.

>> You should have your e-mail client configured to do polling. If the
>> server supports IDLE, your client can get new messages in the Inbox very
>> quickly, but not in other folders. For the other folders, polling gets
>> used.
>
> You can probably use a combination of push on 1st class folders and
> polling on 2nd class folders, I don't but it's a potentially useful
> concept.

From what I've found out from both my e-mail client's author and from a
mail provider, IMAP IDLE only works on the Inbox folder. There are no
other "1st class" folders on which IDLE applies.

>> To what minimum interval can you configure K9 to poll?
>
> 15 mins.

And why, for at least the Inbox folder, you need to use an e-mail
provider that supports IMAP IDLE. I always considered less than 5
minutes to be abusive to the e-mail provider since it is difficult to
get new mails, and read them all within the 5-minute window unless they
were very short. Typically I set the polling interval to 10 minutes.
15 minutes seems stretching it out too long. Someone that sends you an
e-mail and expects a reply won't mind a 5-minute delay, but 15 minutes
to get their e-mail, the time to compose a reply, and perhaps they were
stuck with a 15-minute polling interval, too, could mean they don't get
a reply until 15 to 30 minutes later.

However, some of the K9 users bringing up the issue connect to their
employer's mail server, and it doesn't support IMAP IDLE. One guy noted
that he is a freelancer, the job postings get sent via e-mail, and the
first freelancer to reply gets the job. 15 minutes is way too long to
wait. He was losing money because of the newly Android imposed battery
saving 15-minute minimum polling interval, because others could reply
before him. He had to use a company mail server, and they didn't
support IMAP IDLE, so polling was his only way to get those e-mails, and
those e-mails would arrive too late.

VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
> I've been reading some web forums on e-mail clients, like for K9 on
> Android where users complain they were forced to 15-minute minimum mail
> poll intervals. Some users don't have IMAP servers that support PUSH,
> so they rely on very short poll intervals to react on e-mails within a
> very short time they remain viable (e.g., 2FA codes that expire, job
> contracts sent to a list of freelancers where the first to respond gets
> the job). The users thought a new version of K9 had implemented a
> change to 15 minutes between mail polls from the prior version that
> allowed down to 1-minute polls. The conclusion was that Android 11 had
> a restriction that apps were not allowed to poll servers at less than 15
> minute intervals.
>
> When I check IMAP PUSH, it only works in clients on the Inbox folder.
> If the server moved a new message into the Junk folder, PUSH isn't used
> on that folder for the client to see a new message show up there. I can
> get 2FA codes via e-mail that end up in the Junk folder, and those codes
> expire, and often far shorter than 15 minutes. I cannot whitelist the
> 2FA codes, because the sender is unknown to let me add them to a
> server-side rule trying to keep them out of the Junk folder. Just
> because I'm trying to log into a site that issues a 2FA code doesn't
> mean that is the host name that sends the code. Besides, user-defined
> rules are exercised AFTER the server has already applied its spam
> filtering, so user-defined rules are ran too late. The false positive
> has already been moved into Junk, so it isn't in the Inbox folder when
> the rules get ran. One of my e-mail accounts has a Safe Senders
> whitelist which overrides the server's spam filtering, but other
> accounts have no such whitelist that is effected before the server's
> spam filtering.
>
> Does Android 11 have a limit (which seems unpublished) that IMAP apps
> cannot poll at shorter than 15-minute intervals? That would suck.

From this (your OP) and following posts, it seems your main concern is
your e-mails with '2FA' (read: 2SV) codes ending up in your (IMAP) Spam
folder without you being notified.

Can't you just manually 'poll' your Spam folder after you've entered
your login credentials at the website? Or doesn't the Android mail
client you're using have such a manual-poll facility?

FWIW, I hardly use e-mail on my phone, but I have the BlueMail and
K-9 Mail apps and both can manually poll my Spam folder.

Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

> VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
>> I've been reading some web forums on e-mail clients, like for K9 on
>> Android where users complain they were forced to 15-minute minimum mail
>> poll intervals. Some users don't have IMAP servers that support PUSH,
>> so they rely on very short poll intervals to react on e-mails within a
>> very short time they remain viable (e.g., 2FA codes that expire, job
>> contracts sent to a list of freelancers where the first to respond gets
>> the job). The users thought a new version of K9 had implemented a
>> change to 15 minutes between mail polls from the prior version that
>> allowed down to 1-minute polls. The conclusion was that Android 11 had
>> a restriction that apps were not allowed to poll servers at less than 15
>> minute intervals.
>>
>> When I check IMAP PUSH, it only works in clients on the Inbox folder.
>> If the server moved a new message into the Junk folder, PUSH isn't used
>> on that folder for the client to see a new message show up there. I can
>> get 2FA codes via e-mail that end up in the Junk folder, and those codes
>> expire, and often far shorter than 15 minutes. I cannot whitelist the
>> 2FA codes, because the sender is unknown to let me add them to a
>> server-side rule trying to keep them out of the Junk folder. Just
>> because I'm trying to log into a site that issues a 2FA code doesn't
>> mean that is the host name that sends the code. Besides, user-defined
>> rules are exercised AFTER the server has already applied its spam
>> filtering, so user-defined rules are ran too late. The false positive
>> has already been moved into Junk, so it isn't in the Inbox folder when
>> the rules get ran. One of my e-mail accounts has a Safe Senders
>> whitelist which overrides the server's spam filtering, but other
>> accounts have no such whitelist that is effected before the server's
>> spam filtering.
>>
>> Does Android 11 have a limit (which seems unpublished) that IMAP apps
>> cannot poll at shorter than 15-minute intervals? That would suck.
>
> From this (your OP) and following posts, it seems your main concern is
> your e-mails with '2FA' (read: 2SV) codes ending up in your (IMAP) Spam
> folder without you being notified.
>
> Can't you just manually 'poll' your Spam folder after you've entered
> your login credentials at the website? Or doesn't the Android mail
> client you're using have such a manual-poll facility?

The only time I use the webmail client is to define server-side rules,
not for checking for e-mails.

My Android e-mail client (MS Outlook) uses IMAP PUSH. If it also polls,
it doesn't let me specify the interval. I don't see it offers a manual
poll option. I don't use the Gmail app; however, it makes you select
between IMAP PUSH, or a poll interval, not both. I didn't see a manual
poll instigate in the Gmail app.

Since the IMAP PUSH/IDLE connections can be dropped by the server after
29 minutes, IMAP clients should, at least, poll every 29 minutes, or
shorter, to establish new connections. K9 will poll at 24 minute
intervals unless you set to a shorter interval, but now 15 minutes is
the minimum in K9 claiming Android 11 (and maybe 10) won't let apps poll
at shorter intervals in the name of battery power saving.

> FWIW, I hardly use e-mail on my phone, but I have the BlueMail and
> K-9 Mail apps and both can manually poll my Spam folder.

Yep, because IMAP IDLE only works on the Inbox folder. The other
folders get updated via polls.

While many freebie e-mail providers don't have Safe Sender whitelists to
precede server-side spam filtering, and some won't even let you disable
server-side spam filtering, there's no way to override the false
positives ending up in the Junk folder. Hotmail/Outlook.com does have a
Safe Sender whitelist that is supposed to supercede the spam filters. I
have used it to prevent aliased e-mails (from AnonAddy) from getting
moved into the Junk folder by Microsoft's server-side spam filtering.
However, not all 2FA codes come from the same domain where you were
trying to login. Too many sites contract that out.

2FA codes sent by SMS only show a phone number of the sender. Although
I have Google Voice send a copy of SMS texts to my Hotmail address, I
don't see how I can define filters on them. There are no e-mail headers
on which to test in SMS texts.

VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
> Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
>
> > VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
[...]
> > From this (your OP) and following posts, it seems your main concern is
> > your e-mails with '2FA' (read: 2SV) codes ending up in your (IMAP) Spam
> > folder without you being notified.
> >
> > Can't you just manually 'poll' your Spam folder after you've entered
> > your login credentials at the website? Or doesn't the Android mail
> > client you're using have such a manual-poll facility?
[Fast forward:]
> > FWIW, I hardly use e-mail on my phone, but I have the BlueMail and
> > K-9 Mail apps and both can manually poll my Spam folder.
[Rewind:]
>
> The only time I use the webmail client is to define server-side rules,
> not for checking for e-mails.
>
> My Android e-mail client (MS Outlook) uses IMAP PUSH. If it also polls,
> it doesn't let me specify the interval. I don't see it offers a manual
> poll option. I don't use the Gmail app; however, it makes you select
> between IMAP PUSH, or a poll interval, not both. I didn't see a manual
> poll instigate in the Gmail app.

Not an ideal solution, but as you're using IMAP, you could use
BlueMail or K-9 Mail as an *extra* mail client and do the manual poll
with that. After all, it's just a fallback in case you don't see/get the
email with the 2SV code in your Inbox.

[...]

Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

> Not an ideal solution, but as you're using IMAP, you could use
> BlueMail or K-9 Mail as an *extra* mail client and do the manual poll
> with that. After all, it's just a fallback in case you don't see/get
> the email with the 2SV code in your Inbox.

On Windows, Bluemail is a UWP (Univeral Windows Platform) app, not a
Win32 program. Do you know if Bluemail has a setting to configure it as
a startup app, so it is running when I log into my Windows account? On
Android, is it manifested to be a stick app or use a service, so it is
running when I startup the smartphone? I don't want to remember to
start an e-mail app.

I currently use the eM Client program on my Windows desktop. I tried
their UWP app, but it had no option to start it on Windows login. I
figured out how to specify the app ID on a command line, but it was
simpler to just go back to their Win32 program.

While eM Client supports EAS and EWS to MS accounts, MS took away those
protocols for us freeloaders. Had to go to IMAP, and iCal and iCard. I
had MS 365 for about 5 years, but quit a couple years ago. Don't know
if I'll go back to it, but if I do then I regain EWS access. Bluemail
says "Any device, any protocol". I looked in their help, and both EAS
(Exchange ActiveSync) and EWS (Exchange Web Services) are supported.

Might have to retrial Bluemail since I cannot remember why I passed on
it before.

I trialed BlueMail a while ago, like 2 years. For reasons I don't
remember now, I didn't like it. However, I don't see how Bluemail when
using IMAP IDLE is going to perform any different than my current e-mail
client that also supports IMAP IDLE. It only works on the Inbox folder.
As with Bluemail, I would configure a very short poll interval to get
the other folders updated quickly, like 1-minute polls. A 1-minute
delay to see I got a 2FA code is okay since they don't expire for many
minutes longer.

VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
> Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
>
> > Not an ideal solution, but as you're using IMAP, you could use
> > BlueMail or K-9 Mail as an *extra* mail client and do the manual poll
> > with that. After all, it's just a fallback in case you don't see/get
> > the email with the 2SV code in your Inbox.
>
> On Windows, Bluemail is a UWP (Univeral Windows Platform) app, not a
> Win32 program. Do you know if Bluemail has a setting to configure it as
> a startup app, so it is running when I log into my Windows account? On
> Android, is it manifested to be a stick app or use a service, so it is
> running when I startup the smartphone? I don't want to remember to
> start an e-mail app.

No, I don't use BlueMail on Windows (but Thunderbird).

My comment was about your polling issue on *Android*, i.e. what it
says in your 'Subject:' and the topic of this group.

[...]

Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

> VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
>> Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> Not an ideal solution, but as you're using IMAP, you could use
>>> BlueMail or K-9 Mail as an *extra* mail client and do the manual poll
>>> with that. After all, it's just a fallback in case you don't see/get
>>> the email with the 2SV code in your Inbox.
>>
>> On Windows, Bluemail is a UWP (Univeral Windows Platform) app, not a
>> Win32 program. Do you know if Bluemail has a setting to configure it as
>> a startup app, so it is running when I log into my Windows account? On
>> Android, is it manifested to be a stick app or use a service, so it is
>> running when I startup the smartphone? I don't want to remember to
>> start an e-mail app.
>
> No, I don't use BlueMail on Windows (but Thunderbird).
>
> My comment was about your polling issue on *Android*, i.e. what it
> says in your 'Subject:' and the topic of this group.
>
> [...]

I was reading how K9 (don't remember how I landed in their forums)
changed to 15-minute minimum poll intervals, because Android was
enforcing the minimum interval. If true, configuring an Android client
to poll at shorter intervals (if the client didn't update to match
Android's minimum interval) wouldn't work to sooner get newly arrived
messages in folders other than Inbox.

I couldn't find a manual poll option in MS Outlook or Gmail apps on my
phone. Only assume that they manually poll at lesser than 29 minutes to
prevent the IMAP disconnects the server can enforce on idle connects,
but I don't know what is their poll interval.

Windows is not a problem. It's Google on Android where they fucked up
(if true) the minimum 15-minimum poll interval.

VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
> Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
>
> > VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
> >> Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Not an ideal solution, but as you're using IMAP, you could use
> >>> BlueMail or K-9 Mail as an *extra* mail client and do the manual poll
> >>> with that. After all, it's just a fallback in case you don't see/get
> >>> the email with the 2SV code in your Inbox.
> >>
> >> On Windows, Bluemail is a UWP (Univeral Windows Platform) app, not a
> >> Win32 program. Do you know if Bluemail has a setting to configure it as
> >> a startup app, so it is running when I log into my Windows account? On
> >> Android, is it manifested to be a stick app or use a service, so it is
> >> running when I startup the smartphone? I don't want to remember to
> >> start an e-mail app.
> >
> > No, I don't use BlueMail on Windows (but Thunderbird).
> >
> > My comment was about your polling issue on *Android*, i.e. what it
> > says in your 'Subject:' and the topic of this group.
> >
> > [...]
>
> I was reading how K9 (don't remember how I landed in their forums)
> changed to 15-minute minimum poll intervals, because Android was
> enforcing the minimum interval. If true, configuring an Android client
> to poll at shorter intervals (if the client didn't update to match
> Android's minimum interval) wouldn't work to sooner get newly arrived
> messages in folders other than Inbox.
>
> I couldn't find a manual poll option in MS Outlook or Gmail apps on my
> phone. Only assume that they manually poll at lesser than 29 minutes to
> prevent the IMAP disconnects the server can enforce on idle connects,
> but I don't know what is their poll interval.
>
> Windows is not a problem. It's Google on Android where they fucked up
> (if true) the minimum 15-minimum poll interval.

Sigh! Yes, I know all that, that's why I said:

[Rewind:]

> >>> Not an ideal solution, but as you're using IMAP, you could use
> >>> BlueMail or K-9 Mail as an *extra* mail client and do the manual poll
> >>> with that. After all, it's just a fallback in case you don't see/get
> >>> the email with the 2SV code in your Inbox.

So using BlueMail or K-9 Mail on *Android* as an *extra* mail client,
can solve your problem of *manually* polling your *Spam* folder when you
expect, but don't see/get the email with the 2SV code in your Inbox.

Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

> So using BlueMail or K-9 Mail on *Android* as an *extra* mail client,
> can solve your problem of *manually* polling your *Spam* folder when
> you expect, but don't see/get the email with the 2SV code in your
> Inbox.

After delving into their online articles, I found:

https://bluemail.me/help/sync-options/

which mentions "Manual" for refresh (fetch), but manual refresh, or
fetch (other than sync settings), and "poll" has no hits. I went back
to Google to search on "bluemail manual refresh", and found:

view-source:https://bluemail.me/help/refresh-mail-list/

but that's a blank page. Looks like a Javascripted dynamic page, and
they screwed up on the .js resources. I'm not blocking Javascript on my
visit to their page.

https://bluemail.me/help/tutorial/
Refreshing the Mail List
To refresh the Mail List, pull the screen down (swipe your finger from
the top of the screen downwards)

So, it's there although called refresh instead of poll or fetch. It's
there, but not obvious, plus I'm likely to pull down the notification
shade. App devs seem to think you just miraculously divine how to
operate them.

I didn't spend time determining how to do a manual fetch in K9. I
looked a bit more at the Gmail app bundled on my phone (and one of those
that won't let you uninstall the app unless you use ADB to remove the
package). It will let you do a manual sync, but again how to do it is
very obtuse. In Gmail app's menu -> Settings, tape the 3-dot menu icon
to select Manage accounts. Pick the account, and the next screen shows
a Sync icon. Geez, what a pain. However, divining to drag down from
the top of Bluemail's screen is just as unintuitive. This route to
manage accounts is the same one found by going to Android settings ->
Accounts, picking an account, and tapping the Sync icon. Apparently the
manual fetch is an Android option instead of within the app.

Instead of installing another e-mail app, or switching to the Gmail app,
or wading through menues to get at the Sync button to circumvent long
fetch intervals on the Junk folder to see false positives, like 2FA
codes, I might as well as install the bank's app which I've done. While
there is no external app lock available in Android to put on the bank
app, it does require me to use a fingerprint and enter a 4-digit PIN.
Eh, guess that's okay.

I asked the bank about TOTP with their Android app. They don't know, so
how their app authenticates is unknown.

VanguardLH wrote:

> To refresh the Mail List, pull the screen down (swipe your finger from
> the top of the screen downwards)
>
> So, it's there although called refresh instead of poll or fetch. It's
> there, but not obvious, plus I'm likely to pull down the notification
> shade.

If push is for some reason not working with K9, you can also pull down
to refresh, though you can pull down from anywhere on the screen, that
way it isn't confused with the gesture for the shade.

> App devs seem to think you just miraculously divine how to
> operate them.

Read the release notes occasionally? e.g you might find useful actions
for swipe left/right per message ...

VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
> Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
>
> > So using BlueMail or K-9 Mail on *Android* as an *extra* mail client,
> > can solve your problem of *manually* polling your *Spam* folder when
> > you expect, but don't see/get the email with the 2SV code in your
> > Inbox.
>
> After delving into their online articles, I found:

You didn't have to delve into it, I told you both could do a manual
poll.

[...]

> https://bluemail.me/help/tutorial/
> Refreshing the Mail List
> To refresh the Mail List, pull the screen down (swipe your finger from
> the top of the screen downwards)
>
> So, it's there although called refresh instead of poll or fetch. It's
> there, but not obvious, plus I'm likely to pull down the notification
> shade. App devs seem to think you just miraculously divine how to
> operate them.

I called it 'manual poll' (of your 'Spam' folder), because 'refresh'
is an ambiguous term in this context. Refresh *what*?

It's nearly impossible to "pull down the notification shade", because
you can pull down anywhere in the messages area, probably 70% or so of
the screen. *And* there are two other ways to refresh, a - blatantly
obvious - little button in the upper right and a menu choice in the
upper right menu.

Moral: (As I said it could do the job,) It would have been much
simpler just to try the app, instead of 'delving' into the app's
documentation.

[Much more deleted.]

> Instead of installing another e-mail app, or switching to the Gmail app,
> or wading through menues to get at the Sync button to circumvent long
> fetch intervals on the Junk folder to see false positives, like 2FA
> codes, I might as well as install the bank's app which I've done. While
> there is no external app lock available in Android to put on the bank
> app, it does require me to use a fingerprint and enter a 4-digit PIN.
> Eh, guess that's okay.

A perfectly good choice.

> I asked the bank about TOTP with their Android app. They don't know, so
> how their app authenticates is unknown.

Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

> VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
>> Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> So using BlueMail or K-9 Mail on *Android* as an *extra* mail client,
>>> can solve your problem of *manually* polling your *Spam* folder when
>>> you expect, but don't see/get the email with the 2SV code in your
>>> Inbox.
>>
>> After delving into their online articles, I found:
>
> You didn't have to delve into it, I told you both could do a manual
> poll.

Told the option is available doesn't say HOW to do it. I wanted to know
HOW before I installed.

>> https://bluemail.me/help/tutorial/
>> Refreshing the Mail List
>> To refresh the Mail List, pull the screen down (swipe your finger from
>> the top of the screen downwards)
>>
>> So, it's there although called refresh instead of poll or fetch. It's
>> there, but not obvious, plus I'm likely to pull down the notification
>> shade. App devs seem to think you just miraculously divine how to
>> operate them.
>
> I called it 'manual poll' (of your 'Spam' folder), because 'refresh'
> is an ambiguous term in this context. Refresh *what*?

Yeah, I thought "refresh" was a poor name for the fetch function. I
suspect they don't want to use "poll", because some e-mail services let
you create a poll (voting) on a message. Perhaps they thought "fetch"
was to technical. "Refresh" to mean just mean to repaint the display.

> It's nearly impossible to "pull down the notification shade", because
> you can pull down anywhere in the messages area, probably 70% or so of
> the screen. *And* there are two other ways to refresh, a - blatantly
> obvious

"swipe your finger from the top of the screen downwards". That is their
description. Poor documentation as typical for apps. Andy mentioned
the same to avoid accidentally dragging down the notification shade.

> little button in the upper right and a menu choice in the
> upper right menu.

Alas, I never found any info showing an image of the app's screen with
pointers listing their functions. I didn't find a Google Image where
someone had opened the menu to show what was in it.

> Moral: (As I said it could do the job,) It would have been much
> simpler just to try the app, instead of 'delving' into the app's
> documentation.

If possible, and if there is any documentation of value, I prefer to
research an app before blindly installing it.

Thanks for the help, though.