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+# Delete moves mail to trash
+
+Item 103. Design settled 2026-08-17 with the user.
+
+## The problem, measured
+
+`Delete` adds the notmuch tag `deleted` and does nothing else. Nothing
+downstream acts on that tag, so the mail stays where it is, forever, on the
+local disk and on the server.
+
+Every step of that chain was measured this session rather than reasoned about:
+
+1. `src/mainwindow.cpp:825` adds and removes `deleted`, through the undo stack.
+   No file is touched.
+2. `maildir.synchronize_flags` is `true`, but notmuch's tag-to-flag table is
+   `D/draft`, `F/flagged`, `P/passed`, `R/replied`, `S/unread`. There is no row
+   for `deleted` and no `T` flag.
+3. A probe on a throwaway database confirmed it: `notmuch tag +deleted` left the
+   filename `1234567890.probe:2,` unchanged, while the control `+flagged`
+   immediately produced `1234567890.probe:2,F`. The probe works; the tag simply
+   does not reach the filename.
+4. `mbsync` propagates filename flags. The tag never becomes one, so
+   `Expunge Both` (set on all five channels) never sees anything to expunge.
+5. `assets/mailsync.sh` is `mbsync` followed by `notmuch new`. It contains no
+   `notmuch tag` call and no delete path.
+
+So Delete is a filing action wearing a destructive name. The user's verdict:
+"if I want to delete a mail, I don't want to archive it."
+
+At the time of writing there are **848 messages tagged `deleted`**, all in one
+account's inbox, and **0** of them in any trash folder.
+
+## What Delete becomes
+
+Delete moves the message file into its account's trash folder, reindexes it, and
+tags it `deleted` plus `deleted-from:<folder>`. The tag stops being the action
+and becomes the record of who deleted it and where it came from.
+
+Undo moves the file back and strips both tags. `Restore from trash` does the
+same thing from the trash view, days later, using `deleted-from:` to find the
+destination.
+
+## Prerequisite, already done
+
+Every account must have a local trash folder. In the setup this was measured
+against, five accounts across two providers, two already did; the three on the
+provider that nests localised folders under a bracketed parent did not, because
+their `Patterns` lines named only INBOX, Sent, Drafts and Starred.
+
+`~/.mbsyncrc` now carries the bracketed trash folder on those three channels,
+and one `mbsync` run created the local folders. Verified: all three
+`<trash>/{cur,new,tmp}` exist, and all three arrived empty (far side 0
+messages), so the trash view starts clean there.
+
+`mbsync -l` lists what a channel's `Patterns` would sync, not what the server
+offers. That is why the trash folder appeared to be missing from the server
+until the pattern was temporarily widened. Worth remembering: it is a config
+readout, not a server listing.
+
+The remote list also revealed a top-level user label literally named `Trash` on
+one account, distinct from that provider's real bracketed trash folder. Only the
+latter is synced. Moving mail into the former would look like it worked while
+the server never treated the mail as deleted.
+
+## Config
+
+One new per-account key, `trash`, relative to `maildir`, beside the existing
+`sent` and `drafts`.
+
+**Mandatory**, at the user's decision: the program cannot function properly
+without it, so a missing `trash` is a config error reported through the existing
+warnings path, not a per-account disabled state. This removes the "some accounts
+can delete and some cannot" branch entirely.
+
+Shape of the values, from the setup this was measured against:
+
+| account | `trash` |
+|---|---|
+| provider-a, three accounts | `[Provider]/<localised trash>` |
+| provider-b, two accounts | `Trash` |
+
+The bracketed form is the same shape `sent` already handles for that provider's
+localised sent folder, so `SearchTerm`'s quoting is already exercised on it.
+
+## The worker
+
+```cpp
+void moveMessages(const QStringList &messageIds, const QString &destFolder);
+```
+
+Per message: resolve the filename from notmuch, compute the destination as
+`<account maildir>/<destFolder>/cur/<basename>`, `rename()`, then index the new
+path and drop the old one from the index.
+
+**The destination is a folder name, not "trash".** The user asked for this
+explicitly, against the arrival of Send in v2: composing a message will need to
+move it to Drafts or Sent, and that is the same operation with a different
+argument. Nothing trash-specific belongs inside this function.
+
+Deliberately NOT generalised further. A move policy or a folder registry would
+be speculative until Send exists.
+
+**Ordering is rename, reindex, tag.** A failed rename must leave no tag, so the
+UI cannot show a delete that did not happen. The result carries what actually
+moved, so a partial failure is visible rather than assumed.
+
+This is the first mutation in the app that is not a notmuch tag. Everything
+today goes through `applyTags` on the worker; a move is a rename plus a reindex,
+and the worker has no single-file indexing at present.
+
+## The view
+
+A fifth built-in filter, `trash`, appended to `kQueryGenerators` and named in
+`Config::builtinFilter()`.
+
+It composes with the account dropdown exactly as the others do, per the user:
+per-account trash and an "All accounts" trash. `Sent` is the template, since it
+is the existing filter built from per-account folders rather than a tag:
+
+- All accounts: the union of the accounts' trash queries, `matchNothingQuery()`
+  if that union is empty.
+- One account: `scope.trashQuery()`, the account's OWN query. Never the
+  all-accounts query wrapped in this account's path. That wrap returns the right
+  rows by accident of `path:` being hierarchical, which is exactly why a
+  row-count assertion passes against it.
+
+Unlike Sent it is not `flat`: a deleted message belongs to its conversation.
+
+**`path:` based, not `tag:deleted` based.** The folder is the truth. This is what
+lets the view show mail trashed by another client or a provider's webmail, and what
+makes the view correct itself after a restore without a tag having to be
+stripped. The user's reason for choosing it: it "allows us to differentiate
+mails deleted by qtmaildir (`+deleted`) and mails deleted by other clients".
+
+A card in the trash view therefore shows the `deleted` chip when this app did it
+and nothing when something else did. There is one real example of the latter in
+the Maildir today: a single message sitting in an account's trash folder
+carrying no `deleted` tag.
+
+## Restore
+
+Available only when the current view is the trash filter.
+
+Destination is `deleted-from:` when present, Inbox when not, and the status
+message says which. A message trashed by another client carries no origin tag,
+so Inbox is the documented fallback rather than a silent guess.
+
+The origin tag is needed because a Maildir filename does not record where a
+message came from, and notmuch cannot know once the file has moved. Undo does
+not need it (it moves back explicitly), but a restore three days later does.
+
+## Cleanup of stranded mail
+
+The 848 messages tagged `deleted` but sitting in an inbox would otherwise be
+invisibly half-deleted: struck through on their cards, absent from the trash
+view, and unreachable by Restore.
+
+A **menu entry**, deliberately not a sixth filter button, so it cannot be
+confused with the Trash view. It runs the query `tag:deleted and not <trash
+paths>` into the ordinary thread list. The user browses the result, selects what
+should really go, and moves it with the ordinary Delete. Undo covers it like any
+other move.
+
+**Repeatable, not a one-time migration.** The user's correction: "I don't like
+that it's one time. Maybe I don't have time to deal with it at that moment." It
+reports what it finds whenever it is run, says so when it finds nothing, and
+never fires on startup. That also covers mail tagged `deleted` by some other
+route later, so it is not scaffolding to be thrown away.
+
+Reviewing the mail as ordinary rows in the list is the preview: it reuses the
+existing list, selection and multi-select machinery instead of building a review
+dialog, and "check before deleting" becomes looking at your own mail the normal
+way.
+
+## Two lifetimes, one button
+
+One provider in this setup purges its trash folder after 30 days, server-side,
+and `Expunge Both` does not change that. The other's trash never empties itself,
+which the user verified.
+
+So Delete means "gone in 30 days" on three of the accounts and "moved to a
+folder you can browse forever" on the other two. Same button, two lifetimes.
+This belongs in the docs rather than in a warning dialog.
+
+## The no-confirmation rule
+
+`CLAUDE.md` records that a human at a GUI gets undo instead of confirmation
+dialogs, and that the premise is that undo covers the action. After this change
+that premise holds only until the server purges the trash.
+
+The rule stands: the mail lands in a trash folder that can be browsed, selected
+and restored, rather than vanishing. But its stated justification needs amending
+to say that Delete's reversibility is bounded by the provider where the trash
+folder is purged on a timer.
+
+## Testing
+
+- **The move**, against the throwaway database the worker tests already build: a
+  real Maildir, a real rename. Assert the file is at the destination, that the
+  index knows it there and not at the origin, and that both tags landed.
+- **Undo**, asserting the round trip returns the file to its exact original
+  path, not merely to a plausible one.
+- **Ordering**, asserting that a failed rename leaves no tag.
+- **The filter**, on the generated STRING for both the all-accounts and the
+  per-account case, as the other filters are tested. A row count passes against
+  the double-scoped wrap, which is the trap `Config::resolvedQuery` documents.
+- **Restore**, in both directions: with `deleted-from:` present, and without it
+  falling back to Inbox.
+- **The cleanup query**, asserting it excludes mail already in a trash folder.
+
+## Out of scope
+
+No purge, no empty-trash, no expiry inside the app. Mail leaves the trash folder
+when the server does it or when the user restores it. Purging from inside
+qtmaildir is a separate item if it is ever wanted.