dovecot - Jul 2006 - Dovecot IMAP and Mac OS X Mail.app

Hi All,

I recently switched our Courier IMAP server over to Dovecot primarily for
performance reasons. Server OS is Debian Sarge with Dovecot packages from
backports.org (v 1.0.rc2-1bpo1).

Access from Thunderbird and Horde worked fine with some shared folders
defined and the Courier compatibility private folder stanza. Initial
testing with Mail.app showed that, although the folder listing was fetched
correctly including all shared folders, no mail could be viewed with
Mail.app timing out with an error about invalid namespace. (I'll post the
exact error message as a follow up when I can test again later).

After searching the mailing list for a while, I came upon a message
suggesting adding a second private namespace like so:

namespace private {
   separator = .
   prefix = "INBOX."
   inbox = yes
   hidden = no
}

namespace private {
  separator = .
  prefix   inbox = yes
  hidden = yes
}

Now, this does work in a fashion and allows Mail.app to access the
folders and mail. Problem with this config:

* Mail.app displays all INBOX. folders at the top level *and* below Inbox
* Thunderbird displays a spurious INBOX folder in the folder listing under
Inbox.
* Horde displays folders at the top level and below Inbox.

Whilst not being a huge problem for our internal mail server, this is not
optimal.

Has anyone else had these or similar problems and managed to work them
out? If so, how did you configure Dovecot or the clients to all play
nicely together?

I'd quite like to roll Dovecot out on our client mail server but I need to
work this out first so any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

Ronny
-- 
Ronny Adsetts
Technical Director
Amazing Internet Ltd, London
t: +44 20 8607 9535
f: +44 20 8607 9536
w: www.amazinginternet.com

On 25 Jul 2006, at 3:03 AM, Ronny Adsetts wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I recently switched our Courier IMAP server over to Dovecot  
> primarily for
> performance reasons. Server OS is Debian Sarge with Dovecot  
> packages from
> backports.org (v 1.0.rc2-1bpo1).
>
> Access from Thunderbird and Horde worked fine with some shared folders
> defined and the Courier compatibility private folder stanza. Initial
> testing with Mail.app showed that, although the folder listing was  
> fetched
> correctly including all shared folders, no mail could be viewed with
> Mail.app timing out with an error about invalid namespace. (I'll  
> post the
> exact error message as a follow up when I can test again later).
>
> After searching the mailing list for a while, I came upon a message
> suggesting adding a second private namespace like so:
>
> namespace private {
>    separator = .
>    prefix = "INBOX."
>    inbox = yes
>    hidden = no
> }
>
> namespace private {
>   separator = .
>   prefix >   inbox = yes
>   hidden = yes
> }
>
> Now, this does work in a fashion and allows Mail.app to access the
> folders and mail. Problem with this config:
>
> * Mail.app displays all INBOX. folders at the top level *and* below  
> Inbox
> * Thunderbird displays a spurious INBOX folder in the folder  
> listing under
> Inbox.
> * Horde displays folders at the top level and below Inbox.
>
> Whilst not being a huge problem for our internal mail server, this  
> is not
> optimal.
>
> Has anyone else had these or similar problems and managed to work them
> out? If so, how did you configure Dovecot or the clients to all play
> nicely together?
>
> I'd quite like to roll Dovecot out on our client mail server but I  
> need to
> work this out first so any help is appreciated.
>
I use Dovecot with Mail.app. In fact, I got your email that way. I  
moved all my mail from the old server I was using to Dovecot with  
Thunderbird. I didn't do anything special. It just worked. If you  
want to contact me off-list and see what my config file looks like or  
something, I'm willing to lend a hand.

	Jon

On Tue, 2006-07-25 at 11:03 +0100, Ronny Adsetts wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I recently switched our Courier IMAP server over to Dovecot primarily for
> performance reasons. Server OS is Debian Sarge with Dovecot packages from
> backports.org (v 1.0.rc2-1bpo1).
> 
> Access from Thunderbird and Horde worked fine with some shared folders
> defined and the Courier compatibility private folder stanza. Initial
> testing with Mail.app showed that, although the folder listing was fetched
> correctly including all shared folders, no mail could be viewed with
> Mail.app timing out with an error about invalid namespace. (I'll post
the
> exact error message as a follow up when I can test again later).
I guess the invalid namespace problem should be fixed somehow..
> After searching the mailing list for a while, I came upon a message
> suggesting adding a second private namespace like so:
> 
> namespace private {
>    separator = .
>    prefix = "INBOX."
>    inbox = yes
>    hidden = no
> }
> 
> namespace private {
>   separator = .
>   prefix >   inbox = yes
>   hidden = yes
> }
There can be only one namespace with inbox=yes. Also set location to
point to some empty directory, something like:

location = mbox:~/.emptydir

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