UNSEEN flag issues with multiple clients

[John Stoffel]

>>>>> "Sami" == Sami Ketola via dovecot <dovecot at dovecot.org> writes:

>> On 1 Oct 2019, at 21.45, John Stoffel via dovecot <dovecot at dovecot.org> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> I've been bugged by this issue for a while, and while I see that the
>> \UNSEEN flag is specified in the RFC to be reset once *any* client
>> connects and looks at a mailbox, I was wondering if there's a way to
>> change the behavior so that it's tracked on a per-client basis?
>> 
>> Or if there's even some way to turn it off so that both my iPhone mail
>> client and my main emacs viewmail mail client don't stomp over each
>> other when looking at my mail folder counts of unread messages.
>> 
>> My mail server is running Debian 9.11, which has dovecot
>> 2.2.27-3+deb9u5 as the version.  I'm only running IMAP, no POP at
>> all.


Sami> A SELECT INBOX updates \Seen flags, A EXAMINE INBOX does not.

Sami> there is no configurable value to change the behaviour. Maybe
Sami> you can change your client to use EXAMINE instead of SELECT.

I kinda figured it wasn't an easy issue to address.  Since one of my
clients is an iPhone, I doubt I can fix that client.  :-)

But hmm... maybe it's not the iPhone causing problems, but my emacs
based mail client viewmail, and that I have the source for.  Thanks
for the hint, I'll see if I can chase this down more.

John