[Dovecot] How to see folders/subfolders/emails through imap

[Stephan von Krawczynski]

On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 16:50:40 +0200 (CEST)
Steffen Kaiser <skdovecot at smail.inf.fh-brs.de> wrote:

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> On Mon, 8 Apr 2013, Stephan von Krawczynski wrote:
> 
> > I am trying to do something very simple - at least thats what I thought.
> > I have some fs, it contains folders and subfolders with email files ordered
> > like maildir. Now I try to set up dovecot on top simply to let some imap
> > account watch these email files. But I cannot see any folders at all. I can
> > create new folders and see them, but I cannot create subfolders as subdirs
> > like "folder/subfolder". Instead I get "folder.subfolder" dirs on the fs.
> > I tried to set the separator to "/", but that does not help at all.
> >
> > Is there some easy way to configure dovecot to display:
> >
> > <somedir>/<folder1>/<subfolder1>/new/files...
> >                    <subfolder2>/new/files...
> >                    <subfolder3>/new/files...
> >
> > according to fs layout on some imap-client (like thunderbird)?
> 
> Well, first, simply explain what you mean with "email files".
> 
> a) you mentioned "maildir", so simply look at 
> http://wiki2.dovecot.org/MailLocation/Maildir "Directory layout"
> this would also fit your example, IMHO.

Ok, I thought the setup was pretty clear, but let me give more details. I have
_no_ problem with understanding the several maildir formats, I am here using
maildir (not ++). LAYOUT=fs therefore. My expectation was that directories
would be shown as folders through imap. But they are in fact not shown at all,
neither in thunderbird nor in sylpheed (to name another client).
 
> b) you mentioned "thunderbird", which does not use maildir to my 
> knowledge, but mbox, so simply look at 
> http://wiki2.dovecot.org/MailLocation/mbox
> 
> You might want to place control files somewhere else, see CONTROL= and 
> INDEX=.

Uh? thunderbird is a client, the client should not bother at all about maildir
or mbox on the server.

Again, assume I have a mailserver. The MTA produces directories like:

<spooldir>/<folder>/<subfolder1>/new/<some-email-file>
...                /<subfolder2>/new/<another-email-file>
                   ...
...                /<subfolderX>/new/<again-some-mail-file>


(clearly a maildir-alike format)

Now on this server I want dovecot to hand this layout to some email-client (on
another box, lets say some wind*ws), thunderbird if possible, via imap. That's
about all.
I tried to tell dovecot that <spooldir> is
mail_location=maildir:<spooldir>:LAYOUT=fs
Yes, there is only _one_ user. My expectation was to see <folder> as
imap-folder but I see exactly zero. If I try to create a new folder from
thunderbird side a directory is created inside <spooldir>, so generally
dovecot understood the idea, only directories that are already there are not
shown.

-- 
Regards,
Stephan