[Dovecot] Bah! Outlook

[Robert Schetterer]

Jason Wohlford schrieb:
> Hi All,
> 
> I run a little hosting company. I use Dovecot 1.0.10* with IMAP 
> exclusively. Lots of my customers use Outlook or Outlook Express. This 
> poses a problem. These programs don't and have absolutely no workarounds 
> to move messages to a trash folder when deleted. They only mark the 
> message for deletion. Then, users have to purge the message to actually 
> delete it. Outlook has a way to hide deleted messages and also 
> auto-purge them when moving to a different folder. That just doesn't cut 
> it. (Thanks Microsoft! :-p )
> 
> So, I'm thinking Dovecot could pick up where Microsoft left off.
> 
> It seems to me there needs to be two things done. First, a system that 
> automatically copy a message marked for deletion from one folder (e.g. 
> INBOX) to a trash folder (e.g. Trash, Deleted Messages, etc.) Dovecot's 
> lazy_expunge might already do this, but I couldn't quite discern it from 
> the wiki docs. Second, a way to only do this when Outlook or Outlook 
> Express is the one who is deleting a message.
> 
> Possibility? Comments?
> 
> Cheers,
> Jason
> 
> P.S. Thanks for the great software!
> 
> *Yes, I know. I need to upgrade to Dovecot 1.0.13.
> 

Hi Jason, forget about workarounds for outlook express
its a broken client for several reasons, just advice not not use it.

Outlook isnt Outlook , div versions with div patchlevel
working in different ways and have different ways
( or no ways ) to solve your Problem
  here ist good advice for imap purge
http://www.landaenterprises.com/support/email_imap_delete.asp
note purge in this case ist a function
of the client which the user may handle as he likes

if you want outlook move sent mails to a imap sent folder
use a filter rule

look here for advice
http://kb.nitix.com/1630

at last tell your users that outlook isnt a universal mail client
specially with imap and smtp

Outlook is the client of m$ case in first case
and fits to exchanges needs,
and only with exchange it offers its workgroup funktions
which are from interest in companies

m$ has no interest to make it
better work with imap cause , they would loose money if the do so,
cause as time goes by , specially smaller companies may find
no need to buy expensive windows and exchange servers outlook licences 
anymore

advice users to use thunderbird/lightning as better choice

after all i dont think dovecot should try to deal with outlook
troubles ( which are mutatating from version to version ) , as long as 
there is other important stuff to do (acl etc),but for sure this not my 
decision,
its mainly the work of microsoft to support user questions
about their expensive sold products not yours in my opinion

Same goes to apple mail which does serveral funny stuff with imap
All these products are formed to make money with the special services m$
and apple provides, they arent meant to be highly compatible
to wide spreaded imap,smtp opensoftware servers which mostly very clean 
coded

i know telling this truths are badly told to costumers and users in real 
life , but perhaps you may do the best you can to provide such info
-- 
Best Regards

MfG Robert Schetterer

Germany/Munich/Bavaria