[Dovecot] Binc IMAP "IMAPdir" style layout

[Eric Hall]

On Jul 2, 2005, at 07:32, Martin Lucina wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm in the process of migrating several years worth of mail to be
> accessible via an IMAP server.  Some time ago, I evaluated both Binc
> IMAP and Dovecot and found Dovecot to be much faster on large folders,
> which is quite important to me.  One thing I did not however manage to
> determine from the documentation on namespaces is whether or not it is
> possible to implement what Binc IMAP calls an "IMAPdir" style layout.
>
> IMAPdir lets me layout mailboxes in the filesystem like so:
>
> $HOME/
>    Maildir/                   <---- users mail goes here
>    Mail/                      <---- IMAP root
>        INBOX -> ../Maildir/   <---- (symlink)
>        folder/                <---- some other mailbox in Maildir  
> format
>        folder.subfolder/      <---- '.' is the hierarchy separator
>        folder.subfolder-2/
>        other-folder/
>
> So IMAP clients subscribe to 'INBOX' and 'folder' and 'folder/ 
> subfolder'
> respectively.
>
> This gives me two features that I want:
>
> 1) The ability to easily access all my mail using a command line  
> Maildir
> capable client such as nail, for when I'm connection over a super-slow
> SSH over GPRS connection.  Also, I can actually see my folders (and
> their subfolders) without having to look for Maildir++ style names  
> with
> 'ls -a' (e.g. Maildir/.subfolder/).

[snip]

     One problem I've had with using dovecot (and it looks like other  
imap servers do this as well) and a CLI Maildir client (mutt) is that  
whenever
I access the Maildirs via IMAP, all new messages get moved to cur/.   
Mutt (w/ my config) marks unread messages in cur/ as O (old) rather  
than N (new).  Messages in new/ are marked N, and (the kicker) only  
mailboxes with messages in new/ are marked as having new messages.   
I'd really like to have messages that are accessed via dovecot (IMAP)  
stay in new/, is there a reason that they get moved to cur/ ?  I've  
dug around some (both in dovecot and general maildir googling),  
haven't found an answer.


             Thanks much,



             -eric