Comments | catenoid: imap: v, to smash one's head into the keyboard repeatedly

catenoid

imap: v, to smash one's head into the keyboard repeatedly

Jun 21, 2006 10:39

IMAP has some peculiarities that make setting up mail client software difficult.

The 'INBOX' special folder is defined, but every mail client chooses different folder names for 'drafts' and 'sent mail'. You can have four different 'sent mail' folders, or you can reconfigure those folder names during mail client setup.
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Comments 4

rjl20 June 21 2006, 18:47:23 UTC

Speaking as someone who does desktop support, I am 100% in agreement with you. The number of questions we get which are resolved by making sure all their mail clients use the same root folder path and sent/drafts folders is depressing. And UW IMAP's "filesystem folder" vs "mail folder" problems are just annoying as all hell. I wish it used maildir.

catenoid June 21 2006, 21:48:04 UTC

This has got to be fixable. I wonder how you get on the IETF IMAP list.

Of course, if we wanted to configure UW IMAP support for such a feature, we'd have to recompile it. As the UW IMAP FAQ says, 'Yes, it's that easy.'

huddyn June 21 2006, 23:00:39 UTC

Have you looked at courier imap with maildir? It sorta does all that. (well, it will set that default and youve got to work to alter the behavior).

catenoid June 21 2006, 23:26:22 UTC

Yes. I believe that most other IMAP servers will support that. My next try will probably be Dovecot, since it ships with RHEL4. Unless I go nuts and try Hula.

So that mostly takes care of the second and third problems, but not the 'sent-mail', 'Sent' 'Sent Items' trainwreck in my first point. And we still don't have single-URL style client configuration.