I'm trying to get shared folders to work, and I've noticed a few issues. I created a private and public namespace, the private one with autodetection for Maildir or Mbox, and the public one for a public folder. Something like this:

namespace private { separator = / inbox = yes prefix = location = }

namespace public { separator = / prefix = Public/ location = maildir:/var/mail/public }

My plan is to eventually setup a public area for users to drop Spam and Ham into for my spam bayesan filter.

The problem is the Wiki says if you drop a file in the public area called 'dovecot-shared' with the same permissions and ownership, that any new files dovecot creates there will use those same attributes. This does not seem to be the case. I created a Maildir folder identical to the one on the Wiki, named everything 'dovecot:dovecot' since my dovecot server will be running as that user, as well as the 'dovecot-shared' file. I get permission denied errors in syslog when I try to access it via an IMAP client. The only way I can make it work is ignore the dovecot-share file and put all users in a common unix group and make the Public folder group 'rwx'.

Also, I would like to be able to make the Public folder writable, but not readable. It seems if I take the read bit away, my IMAP clients complain. Does anyone know how to make that work?

One thing about the namespaces while I'm at it. I had to put my private namespace first followed by the public one. If I reversed them, all the subfolders except the inbox in my mail directories disappear from the client. Is that a bug too?

Thanks, Adam