[Dovecot] Numpty question about EXISTS...

[Steve [Dovecot]]

Timo Sirainen wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-10-11 at 18:29 +0100, Steve [Dovecot] wrote:
>   
>> I've been lead to believe that I can use the "EXISTS" response to 
>> trigger the 'new message present in IMAP folder" event in my program... 
>> but I don't seem to receive them when I would expect to when connected 
>> to my Dovecot server.  I get one "EXISTS" message when I call "select" - 
>> but that's it - it doesn't seem to notice when another client moves 
>> messages in/out of the folder.  Are my assumptions about IMAP incorrect 
>> - i.e. must I still poll?  Can Dovecot be configured to send EXIST 
>> responses (or any other form of notification) when messages are moved 
>> into a folder?
>>     
> Run "IDLE" command. Also note that you'll have to break out of it every
> 29 minutes and start it again or Dovecot disconnects you because of
> idling too long. Maybe see RFC 2177 also about how IDLE is supposed to
> be used.
Thanks!  That now makes perfect sense.  I wasn't aware of IDLE - and 
didn't find anything about this in RFC 2060 (the main IMAP4 one) or my 
IMAP access library documentation. I've no problem with polling every 
(say) 10 minutes - as long as my program doesn't only detect new mails 
in the folder when I poll.  My challenge now is to work out how to 
cajole my IMAP client access library to do IDLE - as it doesn't seem to 
be supported as standard.

(Again) - many thanks,

Steve