[Dovecot] Any client out there taking advantage of Dovecot's virtual mailboxes?

[Steffen Kaiser]

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On Mon, 17 Mar 2014, Aleve Sicofante wrote:

> 2014-03-17 21:14 GMT+01:00 Michael M Slusarz <slusarz at curecanti.org>:
>
>> Quoting Aleve Sicofante <asicofante at gmail.com>:
>>
>>
>>>>  OK. Subscribed and voted, but the bug should point to "where to start"
>>>> in
>>>>
>>>>> Dovecot's documentation.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Ok, but... where would that be? I don't see a 'Where to start' to point
>>>> to...
>>>>
>>>> And, well, if subscribed and voted, you could easily add that yourself,
>>>> no? ;)
>>>>
>>>
>> This isn't going to happen in thunderbird, outside of someone writing code
>> for thunderbird to login to the dovecot server (via SSH with an admin/root
>> password), find the dovecot config files on the server (which will vary
>> based on each server), edit the dovecot config non-interactively, and then
>> be be able to restart the dovecot server to make the changes stick (which,
>> again, will vary based on each server).  I would guess there is about a
>> none percent chance of that occurring.
>>
>>
>>  You can read what he says in this very thread. I'm not a google+ user
>>> either. He just says Dovecot's virtual mailboxes are intended for admins
>>> only, not for clients. It doesn't sound logical, but that's what he says.
>>>
>>
>> This is exactly what I said previously in this thread.  And it is a 100%
>> accurate statement.
>>
>> The ONLY way this can be implemented client-side is if there are some sort
>> of standardized IMAP commands that the client can use to alter the
>> mailboxes.  There isn't.
>>
>> In general, IMAP 4 doesn't allow a command to work on multiple mailboxes
>> at a single time (outside of MULTISEARCH... but that's one reason why
>> MULTISEARCH is experimental and really hasn't provoked much interest).
>>  That's why virtual mailboxes don't conceptually work very well as a
>> server-level entity and instead make much more sense as a client-level
>> feature.
>>
>> michael
>>
>
> I don't know who designed the dovecot virtual mailboxes, but they make VERY
> LITTLE sense as admin only. On the other hand, virtual mailboxes on the

Somebody paid for them or convinced Timo by other means, so they make 
sense in some environment. At least one springs into my mind easily: 
POP3-users on IMAP boxes.
Also, they make very sense - as Michael pointed out - to merge a 
hierarchie of mailboxes in order to allow _each_ IMAP client access them, 
e.g. search through. Otherwise the client had to do it.

> server but managed by the client, make A LOT of sense. IMAP is expandable.
> I don't see a reason why Dovecot can't make extensions to the protocol to
> allow that. That's exactly what Google made to their IMAP servers and it
> works wonderfully.
>
> As a matter of fact, I guess that's what Dovecot could use: an IMAP
> extension that manages labels/virtual folders/search folders, right from
> the client.

There had been a thread talking about exactly that: Server-side virtual 
mailboxes that select messages based on keywords (labels / tags), which is 
possible with the KEYWORD search command. However, you would need some 
process (cron job, plugin, post login scripting) that sets up the config 
when a new keyword is created by the client.

- -- 
Steffen Kaiser
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