Re: Courier-IMAP folder layout
Alex Malinovich said:
> I've decided to give courier a shot at replacing uw-imap since it's
> gotten really slow lately. I've got it set up on a testing machine,
> but
> I'm having a problem with getting a proper folder hierarchy set up.
> Using uw-imap, I can create as many root folders as I want. That way,
> when I open up my folder view in Evolution I can see:
>
> - username@servername
> |
> |-- INBOX
> |-- Trash
> --- Work
> |
> |-- Memos
> |-- Personal
> |-- Professional
>
> However, on the courier-imap server, I have the following:
>
> - username@servername
> |
> --- INBOX
> |
> |-- Inbox
> |-- Trash
>
> That is, all of my folders are being created within the INBOX
> (~/Maildir) folder. I understand that this is a feature of the maildir
> format as well as how to do hierarchical folders within the Maildir
> folder. But what I need is a way to "hide" INBOX (since it's not
> really
> an inbox at all) and ONLY show Inbox and Trash like I can with the
> uw-imap server. Either that or a way to have multiple maildir's called
> different things within my home directory so that I can have folders
> other than just INBOX shown as the default. Any suggestions? TIA.
A lot of it depends on the mail client itself also. Right now I'm at
work and using squirrelmail that I have set up on my home system. What
I see in my folder pane to the left is:
-INBOX
Drafts
Sent
Trash
BSKA
Debian-User
Debian-User-Keep
Ebay
Nikki
Nikki-Save
VVW
Creating folders within folders works fine in squirrelmail. I actually
have a LOT more folders than I can see at the moment. Some of them I
only subscribe to for a few moments when I want to move something into
them for archiving. The "BSKA" folder has under it dated monthly
archive folders named as "BSKA-Archive-mm-yyyy" from 08-2001 to
12-2002.
Looking at the exact same set of folders using Sylpheed when I am at
home I see:
-GV (IMAP4)
INBOX
TRASH
SENT
BSKA
Debian-User
Debian-User-Keep
Ebay
Nikki
Nikki-Save
VVW
Sylpheed seems to move the INBOX down a level and then treat the other
folders as if they are not actually subfolders within it.
Still other mail clients have trouble dealing with folders within
folders at all. If I get stuck at a box with only MS products on it
and I can't access my squirrelmail for some reason (I run sid and my
apache was broken for a while) then I use Outlook Express as a last
resort. I seem to recall that it doesn't see any messages in the top
level INBOX at all but deals with all the folders within it (and the
folders within those folders) just fine.
It all seems to depend on how closely the various parts follow the
IMAP RFC's.
What I've done with my own mail setup is to completely ignore the top
level "INBOX". I use procmail for all my filtering so I simply make
sure nothing ever gets delivered to that box. That way if I'm stuck on
a system that can't see messages in that folder I'm still OK. I have a
folder called "inbox2" that is my "final failure" destination for any
messages that procmail doesn't deliver to any other folder.
It also seems to depend on whether the client is designed to work with
more than just the IMAP server. Sylpheed DOES show another
account/inbox/trash/sent ABOVE those IMAP folders I listed. I believe
that is a 'local' inbox within the structure of Sylpheed itself. I
recall trying to get rid of it at some point but simply choosing to
ignore it finally. I believe trying to delete that "account" wanted to
wipe out everything. Annoying, but not fatal. I just ignore it (which
is why I forgot it until now -- I keep my folder list scrolled down to
the point that it isn't visible.
Gerald
--
Gerald
http://www.phorce1.com
http://www.buskatiers.org
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