Is atomic MOVING of messages between IMAP folders possible?

[Michael M Slusarz]

Quoting Greg Sullivan <greg.sullivan at sullivang.net>:

> I was gobsmacked when I discovered that duplicates could easily occur!
>
> Quote from the IMAP wikipedia page:
> Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is a protocol for e-mail retrieval
> and storage developed by Mark Crispin in 1986 at Stanford University as an
> alternative to POP. IMAP unlike POP, specifically allows multiple clients
> simultaneously connected to the same mailbox, and through flags stored on
> the server, different clients accessing the same mailbox at the same or
> different times can detect state changes made by other clients.

Disagree.  I'm not "gobsmacked" due to the fact that IMAP was designed  
to ensure that no unintentional DESTRUCTIVE actions take place.  I'd  
be "gobsmacked" if it was the opposite - preferring duplicate  
prevention over message loss.

What's worse:

1. Concurrent users where one accidentally deletes (i.e. EXPUNGE) a  
message due to inconsistent mailbox state between the two sessions.
2. Concurrent users where one accidentally creates a duplicate message  
during a move operation by the other user.

1 is worse.  (Although 1 becomes mostly irrelevant once UIDs are used  
and UIDPLUS is available.)  But 2, in real-world practice, simply  
doesn't happen enough to make it a critical issue.

michael