[Dovecot] Can't see existing mail folders

[Chris Green]

On Tue, Jun 14, 2005 at 01:21:37PM +0300, Timo Sirainen wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-06-14 at 08:13 +0100, Chris Green wrote:
> > I have installed dovecot version 0.99.11 on my Slackware 10.1 system
> > recently and it basically works as expected.  However I can't get it
> > to 'see' existing mbox hierarchies.
> > 
> > I have the following in dovecot.conf:-
> >     default_mail_env =  mbox:/home/%u/Mail:INBOX=/var/mail/%u
> 
> Looks ok.
> 
> > IMAP MUAs can see the INBOX OK but I can't get them to see any of the
> > mail in $HOME/Mail.  There certainly is lots of mail there, 250Mb or
> > so of it, and a local mutt can see it without problems.
> > 
> > Am I missing something obvious or will dovecot only see mail and
> > folders that it's created itself?
> 
> You didn't have IMAP server installed before Dovecot? Either client has
> specified a wrong IMAP namespace, or it's simply just that it's showing
> only subscribed mailboxes and you've not subscribed to any.
> http://wiki.dovecot.org/moin.cgi/MissingMailboxes may help some more.
> 
I haven't specified any namespaces as far as I know.  I'm testing with
squirrelmail which I haven't used with any IMAP server before and with
mutt.  Neither of these can see anything.

If I create a folder called 'sqtest' using squirrelmail I get
$HOME/Mail/Mail/sqtest created.  $HOME/Mail already exists, dovecot
seems to be creating both the new Mail subdirectory and sqtest.  I.e.
I'm getting an extra 'layer' that I don't want.


(I really don't see that subscribing to mailboxes should make any
difference, I know this is an MUA issue but as I understand it
SUBSCRIBE is *NOT* the same as make visible.  Certainly mutt doesn't
equate the two. The RFC certainly implies that SUBSCRIBE is for use
with newsgroups, not mailboxes.)

-- 
Chris Green (chris at areti.co.uk)

    "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."