Or how about using a virtual folder instead (assuming they will be supported in Dovecot in the near future). It would work like this:
- A read-only global folder called overquota (normally not accessible) contains one generic message saying that you are over quota and will not receive any new messages (with instructions on how to delete email to go under quota).
- Using virtual folders, when a user goes over quota, the user's inbox is shown together (merged) with the read-only overquota folder.
- When a user is back under quota, the inbox will go back to normal.
Interesting... and as long as there is only one message for each user (not sure how you meant 'global folder'), then this would work perfectly
- but wouldn't the size of the virtual folder count against the quota too?
Using this method, no additional disk space is required for writing over quota messages, so it would work with a hard quota or filesystem quota.
Ok, I like it...
On the filesystem is only one message (owned by an admin) that would be shown to everyone over quota - no need to have multiple copies of this message.
I really like the idea of a single message for each user, that shows a summary of all of the messages that were rejected while they were over quota (Message Date/Time, Subject, size, who it was from, etc).
Maybe the global folder could be non-virtual, then a message for each user could be deposited there, then create either:
a virtual sub-folder for each user that contains only their over quota message, that is then merged with their Inbox, or
just create a link to this message in the users Inbox
I don't really care how it is implementd on the back end, as long as the desired result is achived
Additionally, this method could be further developed and configured with a setting to warn users that they are almost at their limit (using a different virtual folder containing a "you're at 95% or 99% of your quota" message). Having a constant, new, important (flagged), un-deletable message in ones inbox would be a constant reminder that action needs to be taken.
I really like that too (flagged, undeletable message), although I had already imagined that this message would be undeletable...
Thanks for the input.
Do you think this could all be done via the Quota Plugin?
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Best regards,
Charles