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Unable to delete IMAP mailbox

#1645

Hi Benny,

I have a problem with deleting IMAP mailboxes. I searched the issue tracker and my issue is different then other reported ones. I can delete the mailbox. It vanishes in the sidebar. But when I restart or look on another machine, the mailbox is back again. No error messages nothing. It just taunts me and silently sits there again staring at me. :)

Any idea how I can get rid of the offending mailbox(es)?

Reported by Alexander Kucera · January 17th, 2017 @ 08:55 AM

State: resolved
Milestone: none
Assigned to: benny benny

Activity

  1. benny
    benny

    What is the name of this mailbox? Is it possible that it's created by another email client or service?

    You can generate logs for me like this:

    • Open the Activity Viewer (⌥⌘0).
    • Delete the mailbox.
    • Use “Help ▸ Send Server Logs”.

    Keep the activity viewer open, relaunch, and then send me logs again when the mailbox appears.

    I can then see what MailMate tells the server to do (if anything).

    January 18th, 2017 @ 12:28 PM

  2. Alexander Kucera
    Alexander Kucera

    The two mailboxes are called "Sent" and "Trash". They have indeed been created by some other mail program. Most likely on iOS. I have been trying out several clients in the past weeks. But I just went through all Mail apps that are actively installed and in use and none of them has set Trash or Sent as special mailbox types. They all use the MailMate default folders of "Sent Messages" and "Deletes Messages".

    Logs sent btw.

    January 18th, 2017 @ 01:20 PM

  3. benny
    benny
    • State changed from new to resolved

    The server says that the proper mailboxes to use are “Sent Messages” and “Trash”:

    13:18:10 S: * LSUB (\Sent) "." "INBOX.Sent Messages"  
13:18:10 S: * LSUB (\Trash) "." INBOX.Trash

    You can see this in the \Trash and \Sent types. Apparently the server does then not allow these to be deleted.

    It's a good thing that the server supports these keywords, but it's a bit confusing that it doesn't reject their deletion (maybe this worked best with the majority of email clients).

    You should use “Trash” instead of “Deleted Messages” and then delete “Deleted Messages”. (No matter which email client you use.)

    January 18th, 2017 @ 01:28 PM

  4. Alexander Kucera
    Alexander Kucera

    So I am guessing it is the same story with the "Sent" folder then? Weird. Because I did not have them before my email client tests. So the server worked fine without them, but now that they are created I cannot "uncreate" them?

    January 18th, 2017 @ 01:30 PM

  5. benny
    benny

    Oh, that's weird. They are both of the same type:

    13:18:10 S: * LSUB (\Sent) "." "INBOX.Sent Messages"  
13:18:10 S: * LSUB (\Sent) "." INBOX.Sent

    That was not the case for “Deleted Messages” which had not type and is likely deletable.

    Having 2 \Sent mailboxes seems to be a server bug. The RFC is a bit unclear on this I think. It's ok that the server tells the email client that both mailboxes contain sent messages. It does not seem ok that the server cannot uniquely tell the email client where to upload sent messages...

    January 18th, 2017 @ 01:35 PM

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