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Suggestion Box: Is A Undelete Email Function Possible?

by Ronen Halevy on Apr 9th, 2008 at 4:36 pm EST
7 Comments »
 

SuggestionboxI got an idea for a new third party application that I wish somebody would develop. I will dub it “undelete” for simplicity. The idea would be an application that would allow you to undelete emails that you accidentally deleted on your BlackBerry.

Personally I know this is partly my fault because I chose the menu option to not confirm the deletion of an email. Personally I just found that feature annoying and an extra step. The problem is that I sometimes press the delete key one two many times and lose an email that I really need.

On a desktop or web email client this would not be a problem. I would be able to just go to the “deleted items” folder and move it back to the inbox. On the BlackBerry this is impossible even if you are on a BES. Something that has always bothered me. You can view the “deleted items” folder on the BES but you wont find the email you just deleted there.

So I have to ask has anybody found a solution to this? I tried one setting up the BES to sync the “deleted items” folder along with the Inbox but this cause quite a few problems. Also this does not help for my BIS accounts.

I have two proposed solutions to this problem that I hope some developer will listen to if such things are possible. If not I think RIM could pick this up as a simple extra feature.

  1. My first proposed solution would be to offer a 15 minute or so leeway between when you hit the delete button until the item is actually deleted. This could also move the email to a different folder so that you can recover it quickly.
  2. The second idea would be something like RIM’s retention of old emails. Just like you can set how long your BlackBerry will keep items in the inbox maybe developers could set a way to keep deleted items on your BlackBerry for 3–5 days.

I know both solutions are very similar but I can’t count how many times I have deleted emails I really needed on the road with no way to recover them until I got to a desktop.

Anybody have any idea?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 and is filed under News.
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7 Comments to “Suggestion Box: Is A Undelete Email Function Possible?”

  1. Posted by: Luciano ES
    April 9, 2008 at 9:54 pm EST

    If you set up a Gmail account, you can have something similar. Whenever you try to delete a message, a pop-up box will ask you whether to delete it just in the device or in the remote mailbox too. And I’m not talking about IMAP.
    .
    Sure, it amounts to the same as configuring your BB to confirm every deletion, but at least that pop-up box always defaults to your last choice, unlike all other Blackberry confirmation boxes that always default to “Cancel”. :-\

  2. Posted by: Ronen Halevy
    April 9, 2008 at 10:49 pm EST

    I 100% agree. I cant count how many times that undo function has saved my ass!

  3. Posted by: Pandu
    April 10, 2008 at 5:59 am EST

    With gmail if you delete an email on your phone it remains in your webmail inbox. If you need a deleted email, just login to webmail and get it. I believe it’s a configurable but default option.

  4. Posted by: Jason
    April 10, 2008 at 8:49 am EST

    Won’t this be possible in SP5 via Remote Search and Retrieval?

  5. Posted by: David B
    April 10, 2008 at 11:44 am EST

    I believe the point was “how many times I have deleted emails I really needed on the road with no way to recover them until I got to a desktop”. He knows he can log into the web and see the deleted email, but that’s not desirable in many situations. I too would like some sort of email undelete feature at the device. The lack of such a capability is why I lose productivity now because with my fat fingers i MUST keep the option enabled to always prompt before deleting. Can’t afford the risk of deleting something important and having no way to restore it even at the desktop (if you have synchronize enabled in BIS for that account).

  6. Posted by: Pandu
    April 10, 2008 at 2:58 pm EST

    It’s quite easy to log into gmail on the blackberry using either a browser or the gmail app. More features is generally good, but this doesn’t seem like it should be a priority for BIS users. Maybe for BES?

  7. Posted by: haephaestus
    April 10, 2008 at 10:40 pm EST

    I tend to agree with the gmail delete-only-on-handheld methodology. If I really needed to get back a copy of the email, gmail isn’t hard to get to at all. I would be hesitant about having yet another chunk of my handheld memory devoted to caching old email that I truly wanted to not see ever again. If there were a developer out there who wants to tackle this, I would suggest using the microSD card for the cache.

    Cheers!