Dear Colleagues, I am using Dovecot 2.3.4.1 with maildirs. Just found out that MacOS Mail clients cannot work with nested folders, presumably because the MacOS Mail does not understand "." as the IMAP separator. Other clients (ThunderBird, Sylpheed, mutt) work fine. Do you think I can change the hierarchy separator in the "inbox" namespace without breaking other clients and the mail layout on disk, losing mail etc? I don't want to break mail for 50 people just to please one Mac Mail user. The users are advanced developers actively using mail sorting rules, nested folders etc. My `doveconf -n` is here: https://termbin.com/w1wd -- Victor Sudakov, VAS4-RIPE, VAS47-RIPN 2:5005/49 at fidonet http://vas.tomsk.ru/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 455 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://dovecot.org/pipermail/dovecot/attachments/20201014/bf2d069e/attachment.sig>
Hi Victor, On 14.10.20 04:36, Victor Sudakov wrote:> Do you think I can change the hierarchy separator in the "inbox" > namespace without breaking other clients and the mail layout on disk, > losing mail etc?I personally would try to avoid such a change (really IMHO), especially if it's "only":> I don't want to break mail for 50 people just to please one Mac Mail > user._one_ user. Could Thunderbird or another IMAP client be an option for this single user? And perhaps Apple can tell some details when their Mail client will be standards-compliant? Besides that: changing the hierarchy separator is generally possible. But you schould try and check that with a test system to prevent problems with your productive environment and all the other users. Regards, Markus
14. 10. 2020 v 11:28, Markus Winkler <ml at irmawi.de>:> > Hi Victor, > > On 14.10.20 04:36, Victor Sudakov wrote: >> Do you think I can change the hierarchy separator in the "inbox" >> namespace without breaking other clients and the mail layout on disk, >> losing mail etc? > > I personally would try to avoid such a change (really IMHO), especially if it's "only": > >> I don't want to break mail for 50 people just to please one Mac Mail >> user. > > _one_ user. Could Thunderbird or another IMAP client be an option for this single user? And perhaps Apple can tell some details when their Mail client will be standards-compliant? > > Besides that: changing the hierarchy separator is generally possible. But you schould try and check that with a test system to prevent problems with your productive environment and all the other users. >I had to do it with 10-20 live users and it went fine, nobody noticed anything (I made the change in the night hours just to be sure though). I had to go down and fix some erratic folder names that resulted from the botched separator handling on some macOS Mail accounts. The funny thing is that I set up a vanilla Dovecot server elsewhere and subfolders worked fine there on the very same macOS client. Couldn?t find any significant difference in the configs that would explain the problem, also the relative lack of similar reports out there seemed mind boggling. (I?m using the Dovecot-based Mailcow mail stack for production, which makes troubleshooting a little more challenging.) -F
Markus Winkler wrote:> > On 14.10.20 04:36, Victor Sudakov wrote: > > Do you think I can change the hierarchy separator in the "inbox" > > namespace without breaking other clients and the mail layout on disk, > > losing mail etc? > > I personally would try to avoid such a change (really IMHO), especially if > it's "only": > > > I don't want to break mail for 50 people just to please one Mac Mail > > user. > > _one_ user. Could Thunderbird or another IMAP client be an option for this > single user? And perhaps Apple can tell some details when their Mail client > will be standards-compliant?Looking at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8347018 I don't hold my breath.> > Besides that: changing the hierarchy separator is generally possible. But > you schould try and check that with a test system to prevent problems with > your productive environment and all the other users. >I was hoping someone had already done that and I could skip this step :-) -- Victor Sudakov, VAS4-RIPE, VAS47-RIPN 2:5005/49 at fidonet http://vas.tomsk.ru/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 455 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://dovecot.org/pipermail/dovecot/attachments/20201014/f7f80356/attachment.sig>
On 13 Oct 2020, at 20:36, Victor Sudakov <vas at sibptus.ru> wrote:> I am using Dovecot 2.3.4.1 with maildirs. Just found out that MacOS Mail > clients cannot work with nested folders, presumably because the MacOS > Mail does not understand "." as the IMAP separator.This is not correct. Mac Mail has no problems with nested folders and never has had any problem with nested folders. I have always used the '.' separator and I've had a 'Root' mail folder with subfolders since at least 2004.> I don't want to break mail for 50 people just to please one Mac Mail > user. The users are advanced developers actively using mail sorting > rules, nested folders etc.And what makes them think nested folders do not work? -- Alice: If you would just shut up for about for two seconds, this sex dream would pass the Bechdel test.
@lbutlr wrote:> On 13 Oct 2020, at 20:36, Victor Sudakov <vas at sibptus.ru> wrote: > > I am using Dovecot 2.3.4.1 with maildirs. Just found out that MacOS Mail > > clients cannot work with nested folders, presumably because the MacOS > > Mail does not understand "." as the IMAP separator. > > This is not correct. Mac Mail has no problems with nested folders and never has had any problem with nested folders. I have always used the '.' separator and I've had a 'Root' mail folder with subfolders since at least 2004.I think I have already posted this link: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8347018 Also this: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2007090423071517 It contains weird advice but at least proves that the problem exists for *some* people. See also the comments therein.> > > I don't want to break mail for 50 people just to please one Mac Mail > > user. The users are advanced developers actively using mail sorting > > rules, nested folders etc. > > And what makes them think nested folders do not work?I don't have the exact error message from him but it was pretty obvious about a folder "foo/bar/bob" being non-existent or inaccessible. And indeed, it's "~/Maildir/.foo.bar.bob" on the IMAP server's disk, there are no subdirectories for mail folders. -- Victor Sudakov, VAS4-RIPE, VAS47-RIPN 2:5005/49 at fidonet http://vas.tomsk.ru/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 455 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://dovecot.org/pipermail/dovecot/attachments/20201014/d129159e/attachment.sig>