[Dovecot] Dovecot and Mail.app

[James Andrews]

Barry,

default_mail_env = mbox:%h/mail/:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/%u

This is what I used to get Mail.app to work with dovecot.  Just  
modify the paths to match your system.  Keep your mail prefix empty  
in the Account settings.

James


On Dec 26, 2006, at 1:09 AM, Barry Warsaw wrote:

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> I'm trying to convert a courier-imap installation over to using  
> Dovecot, but I'm having some problems with Mail.app on OS X.  FTR,  
> we use both Mail.app and Thunderbird.  Note that in the Mail.app  
> preferences, I have a blank IMAP Path Prefix.  I'm using Dovecot  
> 1.0_rc15 on Gentoo, and Mail.app from OS X 10.4.8, Thunderbird  
> 1.5.0.9.
>
> With the old courier setup, in Mail.app I would see a top level  
> Inbox folder, with an inbox icon'd folder underneath that  
> representing the IMAP account.  That IMAP account subfolder would  
> be the inbox of that account.  Under that, I'd see all the  
> subfolders for that account.  Something like:
>
> Inbox
>    Account1
>       Folder1
>       Folder2
>       ...
>    Account2
>       FolderA
> Outbox
> Drafts
> Sent
> Junk
> SmartFolder1
> SmartFolder2
>
> Note that a straight copy from the courier Maildir leaves me with  
> directories like ~/Maildir/.Folder1 and ~/Maildir/.Folder2 -- IOW,  
> they do not have .INBOX. prefix.  I tried adding a "namespace  
> private" section, with separator, prefix, and inbox values as  
> specified in the docs.
>
> This gives me the same layout in the Mail.app u/i as with Courier,  
> but there's a big problem: none of the folders under Account1 have  
> any contents.  The folders are there, and in the right location,  
> but they have zero messages (even though they certainly have  
> messages in the filesystem).  Nothing in the Dovecot log file  
> indicates any problem.  But if I hover over say Folder1 in the  
> Mail.app u/i, I see a popup message like:
>
>     Mail was unable to open this mailbox on the server  
> "imap.example.com".  The
>     server error encountered was: Unknown namespace
>
> Moving over to Thunderbird though, I see exactly what I want to  
> see.  Top level expandable is the account, with Inbox under that,  
> which expands to all my folders.  Of course Thunderbird supports  
> subscriptions, which Mail.app does not, so I only see the folders  
> I've subscribed to.  Clearly, there's some weird interaction  
> between Mail.app and Dovecot.
>
> Next, I tried removing the 'prefix' value from the "namespace  
> private" section, and restarted Dovecot.  Now the Mail.app u/i is  
> different, but all the folders have their contents back!  The u/i  
> now shows:
>
> Inbox
>    Account1
>    Account2
>       FolderA
> Outbox
> Drafts
> Sent
> Junk
> SmartFolder1
> SmartFolder2
> Account1
>    Folder1
>    Folder2
>
> IOW, all of account1's folders live under a separate expandable  
> section below the top level Inbox expandable (that section has a  
> little world icon instead of the little inbox icon).  Account1's  
> inbox lives in a different section from its folders, but it has no  
> subfolders.
>
> Looking back at Thunderbird, I notice that all the subscribed  
> folders are now at the same level as the Inbox, just under the  
> account name.  I.e.
>
> Account1
>    Inbox
>    Trash
>    Folder1
>    Folder2
>    ...
>
> I suppose I can live with the Mail.app behavior sans the prefix  
> setting in the namespace section, but it's not ideal.  I'd really  
> like to know why Mail.app has a problem with this!  Why are the  
> folders there but the contents empty?  Is there any way to increase  
> the logging that Dovecot does to understand what the Mail.app  
> client is sending and why Dovecot is sending back that error?
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated!
>
> - -Barry
>
> P.S. I wasn't able to use courier2dovecot.sh from the wiki (I think  
> others had problems with running it on Linux as well, probably due  
> to the different rename(1) syntax).  The courier2dovecot.py file  
> was no longer available, so I wrote my own.  I can make that  
> available to folks if there's any interest.
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