Sorry for top posting, my client is still broken. 
    
I have never seen the ghost of a "system-alerts" or similar "well-known" mail folder in the past 30 years. 
Compliance with an RFC obscure feature is compellong us all to clear subscriptions fol
    ders by hand. 
As we meet the problem over and over again, a non-RFC configuration option could solve the problem, and it would be very much appreciated...
    
    
    
    
        
    
    > On 23.05.2018 12:31, Rupert Gallagher wrote:
    
    
        
            Dovecot
          does not clear the subscription file from non-existent
          folders. 
            
        
        
Hi!
        
        
Thank you for your bug report. Unfortunately this is not a BUG, but mandated behavior by RFC3501, see last two paragraphs in the excerpt.
        
        
Aki Tuomi
        
        
6.3.6.  SUBSCRIBE Command
        
        
   Arguments:  mailbox
        
        
   Responses:  no specific responses for this command
        
        
   Result:     OK - subscribe completed
        
               NO - subscribe failure: can't subscribe to that name
        
               BAD - command unknown or arguments invalid
        
        
      The SUBSCRIBE command adds the specified mailbox name to the
        
      server's set of "active" or "subscribed" mailboxes as returned by
        
      the LSUB command.  This command returns a tagged OK response only
        
      if the subscription is successful.
        
        
      A server MAY validate the mailbox argument to SUBSCRIBE to verify
        
      that it exists.  However, it MUST NOT unilaterally remove an
        
      existing mailbox name from the subscription list even if a mailbox
        
      by that name no longer exists.
        
        
           Note: This requirement is because a server site can
        
           choose to routinely remove a mailbox with a well-known
        
           name (e.g., "system-alerts") after its contents expire,
        
           with the intention of recreating it when new contents
        
           are appropriate.