[Dovecot] n00b here -- pop email deletion

[Michael Orlitzky]

On 07/10/2011 07:45 PM, Glenn English wrote:
> I'm running Dovecot IMAP and POP3 on Debian. But it look's like it's
> keeping mail in the user's inbox on the server until it's deleted by
> the user. I thought POP servers deleted email as soon as it was
> downloaded, but apparently not, according to dovecot.org.
> 
> Is there something in the Dovecot conf I can do to get rid of all
> this redundant crud?
> 
> I see several conversations on the 'Net about "quotas" that look like
> they might keep stuff around for a few days or weeks, then delete.
> That sounds lovely, but I don't understand them enough to try to make
> it happen.

You can do things on the server to mitigate damage from people who check
the "leave messages on server for eternity" box, but generally, this is
a client preference.

Outlook, off the top of my head, has at least

  * never delete
  * delete messages after N days
  * delete messages after I delete them locally
  * delete immediately