[Dovecot] getting Apple Mail and dovecot/IMAP to co-operate

[Axel Luttgens]

Le 8 juil. 09 à 18:58, Jim Reid a écrit :

> Hi. I've been fighting a losing battle to get Apple Mail and dovecot  
> to play nice. When dovecot is told to use mbox-style mailboxes, it's  
> not possible to create child mailboxes. Apple Mail whines "The IMAP  
> command “CREATE” failed with server error: Mailbox doesn't allow  
> inferior mailboxes.". I've looked through the documentation, the  
> wiki and searched the mail archives without finding a solution. Can  
> anyone help?
> [...]

Hello Jim,

Timo already replied with some hints related to your config and the  
LAYOUT setting.

I just wanted to add that Mail.app seems to correctly honor the IMAP  
conventions as far as naming is concerned, so that the creation of  
child mailboxes is perfectly possible from Mail.app's GUI.

Of course, if the server doesn't allow for dual-use mailboxes, neither  
will Mail.app... [1]

So, let's assume an fs layout for mboxes and "/" as hierarchy separator.
If one selects the "New mailbox..." menu item and ask to create an  
item named "aaa/" somewhere on the server, this will create a  
directory named "aaa" on the server and appear as a greyed folder in  
the GUI.
The same way, one may ask to create "aaa/bbb/ccc" at the same  
location, or to create "bbb/ccc" under "aaa", or to create "bbb/"  
under "aaa" and then "ccc" under "bbb", and everything works as  
expected ("ccc" now being a file on the server and appearing as a blue  
folder in the GUI).

Axel


[1] Note that Mail.app allows for dual-use mailboxes in the local  
storage, but this is thru a trick. If, at the same level, one has:
	- a directory named "aaa"
	- a directory named "aaa.mbox"
this will appear as a single blue folder named "aaa" in the GUI, and  
that folder may contain both messages (they are stored in "aaa.mbox")  
and other mailboxes (they are stored in "aaa").