Support multiple accounts about deltachat-android HOT 30 CLOSED

This is planned, in some way. Esp. to use completely independent private and business account.

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Moreover multiple identities for the same account would be awesome. E.g. I use separate addresses on the same account for different use cases, e.g. private and online accounts with spam risk.

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i am also for multiple accounts, where every account can be switch offline seperately like in conversations.

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any plans of implementing this now that 0.100 is out??

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nothing concrete, but sooner or later we will probably go for it.

the desktop app already supports multiple accounts (and deltachat-core as well).

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Hello mbeko,

that is my opinion too.
it is important for me tu use it with different account, not only alias.
conversations is the best example.
one account/mailbox for privat and one for busssines or other.
i am wondering that must be discuss, this feature hast to be a normal option.

i am speaking with other people who find delta chat interesting, but the missing option of multiple account is an exclusion for their.

greetings

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there were some recent discussions in the core, deltachat/deltachat-core#25 (comment) however, as the core already supports multiple accounts, i closed the core-issue and re-opened this one.

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I second what @MichaIng says:

Moreover multiple identities for the same account would be awesome.

This is also a common thing among GMail users who tend to use the + separator and has been an official "tip" promoted by Google for a long time.

While I know that's GMail-specific, it would be neat if Delta Chat recognized this technique or optionally provided a way for me to signal to the app that I want to treat +-delimited addresses as separate chat identities.

Another way to do this that is less GMail-specific may to append a header (X-DELTA-CHAT-IDENTITY maybe?) to the headers, although this does leak some metadata as OpenPGP cannot encrypt headers, AFAIK.

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my 2 cents: it's not gmail specific, it's at least supported by postfix, where it's called recipient delimiter.

it'd be good to support discardable email accounts, though i don't know if any of these services provide imap access

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A simple solution to allow usage of multiple accounts one by one (not in parallel) can be the usage and switching between separate databases (one DB per Account as it is designed today)
If the standard database is extended with the names of alternative DBs and the related accounts, the UI (Android) can close the DB and open another one. There is no need to change the server, just add another UI item to show the alternative accounts and to make the switch. IF there is a name sceme for alternative DBs switching between teh accounts might be possible between all different accounts. Otherwise there is only the way to switch back to the standard account and from there to another.
Everything else is compatible with the current versions of UI and core.

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Duplicate of deltachat/deltachat-core#25

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IMO the main issue about multi-account is the UI design and implementation of it. If someone can provide UI mocks on how it should work (setup, account selection etc.) please post .

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What are the alternative modes that people do have in mind, in which new accounts may be used? (an account preference)

• separated account?

  • tabs to switch chat lists and used account

• alias inclusion account?

  • all chats included in the default chat list ("unified/shared inbox?")
    • when creating a new chat the (default) account is preselected in the list of accounts to choose

Same, tabbed or not, for "unnapproved emails" (contact request)?

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I'll provide my personal ideas based on my needs, maybe that can provide some orientation. In general, the XMPP client Conversations is a good example of a multi-account UI.

I imagine the account management view as in Conversations: You can add accounts to the list and activate or deactivate them separately via switch on each entry.

The chat list would then display the chats for the selected accounts in a single list because for receiving I don't care much about to which account a message has been sent. So the same goes for contact requests.

For replies, the proper account would be automatically selected and for new chats I would select it myself.

Contacts would be independent of the account, I could always see all of them.

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i'm closing this for now here; the new forum at https://support.delta.chat is the better place for feature requests and discussions.

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@MichaIng

multiple identities for the same account would be awesome. E.g. I use separate addresses on the same account

I do not understand your use of the word 'account'.

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@hpk42
I have multiple mail providers as well for different kind of contacts but usually on each of them multiple alias mail addresses for organisational reasons. To be true I haven't used delta chat for a while because of this, so not sure about meanwhile added features 😉.

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@hpk42
Yes, basically it would mean that every chat needs to be attached to a certain account and/or alias. A default could be implemented when opening new chats, but it needs to be possible to choose it of course. When receiving a mail/new message, the account/alias could be derived from the mail address, but can be attached only if this alias has been created already, else to be base account... yeah definitly a bunch of additional GUI work which would need to be implemented wisely to keep it clean not overloaded... I understand that this is out of scope as long as there not a large number of requesters or someone who contributes this feature to the code.

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@hpk42
Sounds reasonable. However me personally would prefer a mixed-account chat-list indeed. Having to switch the account first, requires at least two additional touches every time, not very handy to quickly see/switch/join/create a chat. However I see the argument with cleaner UI...

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As there was not much of a reaction to my comment and the UI argument came up again, I'd like to repeat it:

In general, the XMPP client Conversations is a good example of a multi-account UI.

I currently don't have the time, but if I finally get to help implement this, I'd basically copy that UI.

From UX feedback gathered so far through 10-12 one-hour
interviews on this, most people use different apps for separating concerns.

Personally, I'd really like to have the possiblity of using multiple accounts because I don't separate by "chat vs. e-mail address" but by "public vs. private address". As mentioned in the second post here.

And because one of the advertised ideas behind Delta Chat is that you can use existing e-mail accounts, that's what I started doing. Now it would be quite painful to tell my contacts that they should please use a new address which I would have to create for chatting.

Having to switch the account first, requires at least two additional touches every time, not very handy to quickly see/switch/join/create a chat.

I agree. I haven't used the desktop app because of security concerns, so I'm also wondering if I'd be notified of new messages for an account which isn't currently active.

If yes, and if pressing the notification switches the account view, that'd be fine for me.

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Since traditional mail programs are all by dead (still using Opera 12.x for it) i was thinking to try Delta Chat.

But it seems at max i will be able to switch only one of my mailboxes to Delta...

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I don't know, i still try to figure it out.

In general, DC seems to do lots explicitly to AVOID becoming a mail program, so perhaps i should not abuse it by forcing to be :-)

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I don't think this feature has much to do with Delta Chat being a mail program or not. Chat programs like Conversations also support using multiple accounts at the same time.

I want to use Delta Chat for chat only, I have several existing e-mail addresses and telling my contacts already using those to please use a new address would somehow collide with the idea of Delta Chat to pick up on the existing infrastructure.

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The current implementation of Delta Desktop works fine - so the backend is still able to support it on phones too. It is just the UI that must be enhanced (I expect in a a very easy way - one menu item, one selection dialog). If someone will implement a mixed account chatlist - fine - maybe it is another choice option in the account dialog and we have both behaviours without too much new implementations

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I know all of that regarding the multiple account support. I just wanted to correct the perspective that this feature has anything to do with mail program features, and to explain why concurrent accounts are useful and how this is already solved well in other chat apps.

Thanks for the advice, but it somehow misses the point I made in my comment 😉

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