[Dovecot] Can't get dovecot to see email folders

[Brian Hayden]

Your Thunderbird clients are set to show only subscribed folders.  Dovecot by default is not looking got the same subscriptions file that uw-imap was. So, thunderbird shows no mailboxes because the (new) subscription file is empty.  

This is one of the many reasons why subscriptions are bad, especially come migration time. Another? It's likely you'll need to tweak your namespaces once you do get thunderbird using the right subs, because each client has it's own heinous way of mid-handling subs which result in disgusting interactions with the "imap root" setting and namespaces. And by "tweak" I mean re-do over and over till you quit and move to the Bahamas to panhandle on the beach. 

Take this as a golden opportunity to start fresh. At the very least, get your clients set to the same imap root and have them re-sub to the folders they want after you stabilize your namespaces. Better yet, disable the "show only subscribed folders" setting and teach your users the magic that is hierarchical folders. They don't have to see everything at once. :)

-Brian 


On Aug 28, 2010, at 10:08 AM, Blaster <blaster at 556nato.com> wrote:

> Charles,
> 
> Thanks for much for your tips...I have gotten further!
> 
> I did have a userdb section, but I commented it out because it didn't seem to do anything.  I've added it back in, and now home= is filled in appropriately.  Now my mail clients aren't complaining!
> 
> However, Thunderbird, Outloook, etc, are still not able to list private folders.  If I make a new folder, it gets created in /home/%u/mail as it should, but Thunderbird removes it again on the next refresh.  If I use the mail client on my Android phone which does a raw directory listing, I'm put into the correct /home/%u/mail folder, so that part is working.  So this seems to be a foldering listing problem?  I've copied in the UW-IMAP namespace section from the WIKI.
> 
> HEre's my current config file, any thoughts as to why Thunderbird isn't picking up the private folders?
> 
> # /opt/sbin/dovecot -n
> # 2.0.1: /opt/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
> # OS: SunOS 5.11 i86pc
> base_dir = /var/run/dovecot/
> first_valid_uid = 100
> mail_debug = yes
> mail_gid = mail
> mail_location = mbox:/home/%u/mail:INBOX=/var/mail/%u
> mail_privileged_group = mail
> mail_uid = dovecot
> namespace {
>  inbox = yes
>  location =
>  prefix =
>  separator = /
> }
> namespace {
>  hidden = yes
>  list = yes
>  location =
>  prefix = mail/
>  separator = /
> }
> namespace {
>  hidden = yes
>  list = yes
>  location =
>  prefix = ~/mail/
>  separator = /
> }
> namespace {
>  hidden = yes
>  list = yes
>  location =
>  prefix = /home/%u/mail/
>  separator = /
> }
> passdb {
>  driver = pam
> }
> plugin {
>  home = /home/%u
> }
> service imap-login {
>  inet_listener imap {
>    port = 143
>  }
>  inet_listener imaps {
>    address = *
>    port = 993
>  }
> }
> service pop3-login {
>  inet_listener pop3 {
>    address = *
>    port = 0
>  }
>  inet_listener pop3s {
>    address = *
>    port = 0
>  }
> }
> ssl_cert = </usr/local/ssl/certs/dovecot.pem
> ssl_key = </usr/local/ssl/private/dovecot.pem
> userdb {
>  driver = passwd
> }
> 
>