Hi folks,

I upgraded an IMAP server from Dovecot 2.3 to 2.4.1 (Debian 13). I have used the lazy expunge plugin for many years, and after upgrade, it was impossible to get it working as previously. After many trials I got it working sort of, but not as previously.

The mail location and driver is the following: mail_home = /data/vmail/%{user | username} mail_driver = sdbox mail_path = ~/dbox

Previously I had the following structure

~/dbox (user's mailboxes) ~/expunged (user's expunged emails)

After upgrade I had to resort to store expunged messages in the inbox namespace in the hidden folder .EXPUNGED, instead of in a separate structure under ~/expunged. This is something I sincerely dislike, as I want expunged messages separate. Now, when messages are expunged, Dovecot no longer obeys the structure of the mailboxes, and puts all expunged messages in the .EXPUNGED folder. Previously the structure of the ~/expunged folder was a copy of the inbox namespace, but now it is just a large garbage bag.

This is really a breaking change, and very unfortunate. I had a retention period of 90 days for expunged messages, mainly as a forensic tool. It has been of great help in correcting users that do not follow company guidelines, and opened insecure/infected archives, even if it's strictly prohibited. It has also rescued whole folder structures with sub folders on several occasions, when the users have inadvertently deleted a main folder, and then emptied trash. Now all expunged messages are stored in one big mess, which is much harder to analyze, and I assume, almost impossible to recover to the original state, if that would be needed.

I would like to ask, if it is at all possible to get the equivalent of the previous behavior, and in that case, what the configuration would look like.

Any help would be very appreciated.

Best regards,

Peter