Can anyone tell me why all of the major e-mail clients and services (hotmail, gmail, yahoo, etc) give users the option to mark messages as "unread"?
I can't think of a single reason that this is useful, except of course malicious reasons, i.e. a hacker reading your messages and effortlessly covering his tracks by marking them unread.
Wouldn't it be *more* useful if messages remained unread permanently, so that you could easily see that they were read by someone other than you? Why do e-mail providers give such an easy way for hackers to cover their tracks?
2008-03-11T12:36:22Z
That last paragraph should say, "wouldn't it be more useful if messages remained 'read' permanently when opened..."
2008-03-11T12:50:15Z
@jtr: I'm not sure I see where marking a message "unread" comes into play in your situation. When you respond to a message, it becomes "read", and will appear "read" on all other computers from which you access your mail (so you know you responded to it). So when do you mark it "unread"?
2008-03-11T12:53:07Z
@drivenbywhat: I don't mean to sound narrow-minded; I just want to see if the benefits of this 'feature' outweigh the security implications.
hari2008-03-11T14:37:02Z
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There is no security benefit of removing option of marking "unread" because (1.) a hacker can still read the messages which are already read. (2.) hacker may not care whether owner of account finds out of hacking activity, in that case unsuspecting owner may miss many of messages to read in first place because they are now marked read. It is difficult to remember in high volume of e-mails that whether e-mail marked read is really read or not.
(3.) in worst case scenario, hacker may delete the message after reading to cover the crime, which may be more costly for account holder than simply finding out whether someone else has read it or not.
In summary option for marking read or unread can serve if at all marginally to deter hacking. On the other hand there are many situations, where ability to mark unread is important. In business scenario e-mails are often read by multiple peoples. A person who checked the e-mail but don't intend to take action wants to make sure next agent reads it. For personal e-mail scenario, people often use multiple softwares for example outlook in office but web-browser from outside. If software is configured to download only unread messages then person who checked e-mail from outside wants to make sure e-mail is downloaded in office computer on his return and of cause as previously pointed out, one wants set a reminder for him/herself that e-mails need to be reread then unread option comes handy.
I use the unread option because I look at them with multiple computers and respond with only 1, I know I responded if it is marked read and do not have to look in the sent folder to find out.
Simply because not everyone has narrow vision like you. No offense. There are some good reasons for it. Sometimes you are in a rush and can't really read your email but just quickly skim it. However, skimming it doesn't let you read it completely and you do want to remember that you didn't fully read it. Marking it read and not being able to undo it would defeat that purpose.
good-click the message and decide "Mark as Unread" (or shift+ok while you're a shortcut junkie) interior the pop up menu that looks. yet you incredibly shouldn't bypass in the back of different persons's back to circulate into their inbox and examine their mail. no longer in basic terms in view that's ethically "no longer executed", yet in addition because of the fact off privateness rules that should get you into intense difficulty for doing it.