[Dovecot] OT: IMAP folder aliases

[Ed W]

Patrick Ben Koetter wrote:
> It seems that there is no standard for folder names that deal with typical
> message classes such as drafts, outbox, sent, spam etc. At least there's no
> common sense on a naming convention that tells how client should handle this.
>
> Worse than this, most IMAP clients auto-create folders according to their own
> naming convention if they don't exist. Every client introduces its own view.
>
> Users OTOH expect a single view that makes it easy for them to find their
> messages. They are unwilling to search in "sent", "sent-mail" or "Sent items"
> for "messages that have been sent".
>
> I doubt that software producers will adopt a standard naming convention if it
> was introduced within a useful time span.
>
> Has anyone seen an approach or a solution that solves the problem from a users
> point of view? A server side alias list that maps to a server standard?
>
>   

A crude workaround would seem to be symlinks.  Perhaps a cron job to 
scan for likely aliases, then merge them into your preferred folder 
names and symlink them.  This would mean if the user creates a "Sent" 
folder, you would eventually find it, and symlink it to your "Sent 
Items" folder and merge any items created so far. 

This is imperfect in that you end up with multiple folders visible in 
the folder list (confusingly often showing the same data in each...).  
Deletes are also going to be fun because deleting "Sent" will just kill 
the symlink, deleting "Sent Items" will kill all your mail and leave the 
symlinks broken...  Server side aliases would help here I guess?

The XLIST extension as others have pointed out will help a lot.  Feature 
request for Dovecot I guess?

Possibly there is some clever way to use namespaces to help hide these 
duplicated folders..?

Would love to see this solved myself also!

Good luck

Ed W