I've been wondering about ways to handle all the various different Sent/Sent
Messages/Sent Items/etc mailboxes that different clients create and if there
could be a way to make them work at least somewhat better. I'm mainly
thinking about ISP-like installations where users are using tons of different
clients and there's no way to get everyone configured properly. Of course
the eventual solution is hopefully that all the clients will support SPECIAL-USE
extension, but while waiting for that maybe mailbox aliases could help some.
So one possibility would be to force autocreation of wanted specific mailbox
names, and create aliases for the other commonly used mailboxes. The main
difference here for the current behavior is that all of the mailboxes would
contain the same mails, instead of different mails going to different mailboxes
with different clients. So for example:
..
mailbox Sent {
auto = create
special_use = \Sent
}
mailbox "Sent Messages" {
special_use = \Sent
alias_for = Sent
}
..
If "Sent Messages" doesn't exist:
- DELETE Sent works as usual
- RENAME Sent works as usual
If "Sent Messages" is created:
- it's symlinked to Sent
- DELETE "Sent messages" deletes the symlink, not the contents
- RENAME "Sent messages" isn't allowed
- DELETE/RENAME Sent fails with message: Delete/Rename for Sent not allowed
before "Sent Messages" is deleted.
Thoughts?
The main disadvantage is that clients would still see two different mailboxes,
and some would download contents from both of them.
I was thinking about creating some wiki page which could list the best working
configurations and also a client list, which would specify if it supports
SPECIAL-USE and what the default mailbox names it uses are.
Am 02.09.2012 17:32, schrieb Timo Sirainen:> The main disadvantage is that clients would still see two different mailboxes, and some would download contents from both of them. > > I was thinking about creating some wiki page which could list the best working configurations and also a client list, which would specify if it supports SPECIAL-USE and what the default mailbox names it uses are.Hi Timo, funny, yesterday i had problems with this, i am using virtual plugin setup with pop3 also disallow i.e imap Sent/Trash/Drafts download via imap, but allow Junk imap folder to be downloaded via pop3 cause i have a global sieve rule storing, that spam tagged mail is going direct in Junk folder, that usally cant be overided by users. This should avoid redirecting spam tagged mail via sieve by users in prime. This works nice. My users use all kind of os and mail clients typical ISP Setup Default webmail Horde Imp layout is configured for thunderbirds default imap folder layout, also thunderbird is announced to be the supported mail client via the faq help site, not because its the best client appearing, only for ,that it is installable in all major os, so debug is possible widly In the help site and pictured welcome pdf mail there are setups shown for all major mail clients, as outlook, thunderbird , winmail. Not for Apple cause i havent got the chance to make screenshots from it yet. I also have active sync via z-push so setup in android mail app is on the help site too. So far so good. With Problems that i.e outlook is very different in handling imap folder setup through its versions As more and more people going to use mobile, stuff get more complicated As one user uses k9mail android vers 4.11 ( this is recent ), which cant do imap special use yet, so a i.e german Sent Folder ( Gesendet ) is created auto by the k9 client, same user does pop3 via outlook so the problem appeared that he send mail with copy in the "Gesendet" from K9 mail android folder ,but this Folder wasnt disallowed in the pop3 virtual layout , so a loop appeared. I had now to disallow folder "Gesendet/Papierkorb/Entw?rfe" for pop3. Upcomming Versions K9 Mail 4.2 can do imap special use, and it works by testing Only small real World example. I investigated little, and found neither Thunderbird Outlook or Apple is supporting imap special use yet ( seems its on the road for thunderbird ), perhaps someone knows more about this. My meaning to this theme is, its simply teribble for 21 century mail that there is no recommended default imap folder layout for all mailclients, imap special use looks promising , hopefully it will wide spread Goal: Configure mail should be done auto only with emailadress and password including default imap folder layout and match trough all major mail imap clients. So example wiki site for configure dovecot relate to major imap clients and their versions behave in default imap folder layout and support of imapspecial use would be extrem helpfull, in fact yesterday i searched about that. -- Mfg Best Regards Robert Schetterer
On 09/02/2012 05:32 PM, Timo Sirainen wrote:> mailbox Sent { > auto = create > special_use = \Sent > } > mailbox "Sent Messages" { > special_use = \Sent > alias_for = Sent > } > Thoughts?Yes. It should solve some problems, but I think that only wide-use of SPECIAL-USE is a solution for this. Also.... I don't use current version of dovecot, but from reading this list I remember that SPECIAL-USE implementation in dovecot is read-only. What I'd like to see is possibility to set special-use flags by the client - no server configuration required. It means, when user connects to his mailbox for the first time and special folders doesn't exist, the client (supporting SPECIAL-USE) can create folders according to its configuration and set their special-use flags. Or at any time when it find that special folder doesn't exist. -- Aleksander 'A.L.E.C' Machniak LAN Management System Developer [http://lms.org.pl] Roundcube Webmail Developer [http://roundcube.net] --------------------------------------------------- PGP: 19359DC1 @@ GG: 2275252 @@ WWW: http://alec.pl
This is now implemented as a plugin in hg. Usage in the commit message: http://hg.dovecot.org/dovecot-2.1/rev/f5bb9f6b304d Also there's a generic change where symlinks within same directory are treated as mailbox aliases, which aren't counted towards quota. On 2.9.2012, at 18.32, Timo Sirainen wrote:> I've been wondering about ways to handle all the various different Sent/Sent Messages/Sent Items/etc mailboxes that different clients create and if there could be a way to make them work at least somewhat better. I'm mainly thinking about ISP-like installations where users are using tons of different clients and there's no way to get everyone configured properly. Of course the eventual solution is hopefully that all the clients will support SPECIAL-USE extension, but while waiting for that maybe mailbox aliases could help some. > > So one possibility would be to force autocreation of wanted specific mailbox names, and create aliases for the other commonly used mailboxes. The main difference here for the current behavior is that all of the mailboxes would contain the same mails, instead of different mails going to different mailboxes with different clients. So for example: > > .. > mailbox Sent { > auto = create > special_use = \Sent > } > mailbox "Sent Messages" { > special_use = \Sent > alias_for = Sent > } > .. > > If "Sent Messages" doesn't exist: > - DELETE Sent works as usual > - RENAME Sent works as usual > > If "Sent Messages" is created: > - it's symlinked to Sent > - DELETE "Sent messages" deletes the symlink, not the contents > - RENAME "Sent messages" isn't allowed > - DELETE/RENAME Sent fails with message: Delete/Rename for Sent not allowed before "Sent Messages" is deleted. > > Thoughts? > > The main disadvantage is that clients would still see two different mailboxes, and some would download contents from both of them. > > I was thinking about creating some wiki page which could list the best working configurations and also a client list, which would specify if it supports SPECIAL-USE and what the default mailbox names it uses are.