543227 - Standard IMAP folder names (sent / sent items) - and missing localization

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Philippp]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_8; de-de) AppleWebKit/531.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.3 Safari/531.9
Build Identifier: Thunderbird 3.0.1

When using Thunderbird and other email clients (or webmailers) on the same IMAP account, you usually end up with two SENT and TRASH folders, since TB uses different default names ("Sent" and "Trash") than other popular clients ("Sent Items" and "Deleted Items"). Obviously, as a workaround, the user can configure TB to use a different folder as Sent/Trash, such as the "popular" names like "Sent Items".
STILL, these folder names are note localized - so, as a german-speaking user, I get an english name for the Sent Items, while the Inbox and other folders are properly localized.

To sum it up, the user 1.) needs to edit settings to avoid duplicate folders (cumbersome), and 2.) gets incomplete localization.
My suggestions:
1.) Upon Account creation, if we find a folder called "Sent Items", use this instead of creating a new "Sent" folder. Do the same for "Deleted ITems".
2.) Add localization for "Sent Items" and "Deleted Items" (and probably other popular names?).
If 1.) seems to complicated, then at least 2.) should be implemented.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Use a popular email client to access your imap account, send some email.
2. Access this account with TB, send some email.

Actual Results:  
There are two "Sent" folders, one of them is localized, the other is called "Sent Items".

Expected Results:  
Having only one "Sent" folder, whose name is properly localized.
(Same for "Trash" / "Deleted Items".)

For english-speaking users who know what they need to do, its no hazzle to change the settings in TB to use the other sent folder, and to delete the first one.
But for international users, this does not solve the problem because of the missing localization. You get a mix of localized and additional english folders in your Mailbox, which makes TB and IMAP appear confusing and inconsistent, especially to inexperienced users - probably exactly the ones who tried to switch from Ou****k to TB.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Are you refering to bug 480393 ?

Comment 2

[Philippp]

No, definitely not.
In short, my problem results from two components:

1.a) Thunderbird defaults to "Sent", not "Sent Items".
1.b) "Sent Items" is not localized.
2.) Popular eMail clients and most webmailers use "Sent Items"

Number 1 (a+b) alone is not a problem.
Number 2 alone is not a problem.
But using TB in parallel to a webmailer, 1 + 2 create the problem.

The same happens for "Trash" / "Deleted Items"

Comment 3

[Philippp]

Update: A.) I read somewhere that TB intentionally avoids names like "Sent Items" because of patent issues. If that is true, we probably need to cope with this inconsistency. Still, perhaps it is possible just to localize these names, if these folders already exist?

B.) From a discussion with WADA in bug #556113 (thanks again) I got to know that the folder pickers do use foldernames supplied by the IMAP server via XLIST, and from other bugs I know that the folder icons are often displayed wrongly - so my issues might be "fuzzed" by these aspects, as I was constantly annoyed because TB appeared to choose other folders than I had configured.
I regret I currently do not have enough time to test all this again, we are rather useing the un-localized names for now.
Maybe I will try again when TB 3.1 is released.

Comment 4

[Vincent (caméléon)]

I can confirm with French provider Laposte.net that imap folder are not localized properly:
Things thats works: 
- Inbox is called "Courrier Entrant"
- Trash is called "Corbeille"
But unfortunately, some folders keep there original server name:
- Sent folder take the name of OUTBOX (I would prefer "Courrier Envoyés")
- Drafts folder is called DRAFT (I would prefer "Brouillons")
- Junk folder is called QUARANTAINE (I would prefer "Courrier indésirable")

I wonder why trash and others specials folder are treated in a different way by Thunderbird...

PS: Folder that doesn't exist on the server (like "Modèles" and "Archives" are created with a localize name, which is great).

Comment 5

[Vincent (caméléon)]

Attachment: French view of unlocalized imap folder name (imap.laposte.net)

You can see in red the folder that have keep there server name instead of the localized folder name.

Comment 6

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

I prefer solution like "any label user wants for Tb's mail folder" for this kind of issue, like Folder Properties/General/Label name of this folder:. This is similar to current account's name at folder pane.
Bug 572044 is for such request.

Comment 8

[Vincent (caméléon)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> I can confirm with French provider Laposte.net that imap folder are not
> localized properly:

I have just configured IMAP access on Orange.fr (n°1 Internet provider in France) and Free.fr (n°2 or 3) and the issue is the same... My mother where quite surprised to see some weird folders name like "OUTBOX" or "DRAFT" which doesn't mean anything for her.
As it is certainly easy to fix (because for instance localization already works for the Trash folder), it should be fixed ASAP.

Comment 9

[Philippp]

For me, Thunderbird 5 added the same weirdness to the "Archives" folder:

On an IMAP account, I have set my TB (3.x) to use a special archives folder (its name is "Archiv" (the german translation, because I wanted to see a german name in webmail). That has worked nicely, TB added the year-subfoldes and also the archive icon was correct.

After I upgraded to TB 5, TB created a new archives folder besides my one, called "Archives", and all messages are filed there from now on.
Using the UI, I did not manage to convince TB to use my original "Archiv" folder.

Is there any "auto-discover" mechanism for archive folders in IMAP, like for the other special folders?? (My webmail does not have such an option, although I can set names for other special folders.)

Comment 10

[Philippp]

(In reply to comment #9)
Sorry, I have to revise my comment #9 - I had forgotten that this setting is specific for each personality of an account. After going through all personalities, archiving works as expected.

So, what remains is just that the update seems to have triggered TB to go back to the default names. Not such a huge problem.

Comment 11

[Vincent (caméléon)]

Attachment: French view of unlocalized imap folder's name with outlook.com

Since Outlook.com now supports Imap, this bug also has some impacts:
- Trash folder is called "Deleted" instead of its French translation which is "Corbeille"
- Junk folder is called "Junk" instead of its French translation which is "Indésirables"

Comment 12

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Vincent, that's because MS had to use non-standard names. If they used "Trash", TB would find it, IIRC.

I don't supposed that their IMAP server supports RFC 6154 from bug 558659, does it?

Comment 13

[Vincent (caméléon)]

I agreed with that Ben, the problem is that once it has been correctly set up by the user, Thunderbird still display the server name of the folder (which is in English) instead of the localized folder name. So it is quite unappropriated from the user point of view to see French and English folder name in the folder pane...
Do you see what I mean?

Comment 14

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Yes, the screenshot in comment 11 is clear.

Comment 15

[Vincent (caméléon)]

Do you think that something could be done in order to fix this "old" issue? From my point of view, I guess something has been forgotten in Thunderbird's code, but it may be harder than I imagine...

Comment 16

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to Ben Bucksch (:BenB) from comment #12)
> I don't supposed that their IMAP server supports RFC 6154 from bug 558659,
> does it?

They are looking at it, but it would, of course, require us to complete the support as well.

Comment 17

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> They are looking at it

How do you know that?

Comment 18

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

BTW, the issue that the Hotmail/Outlook/Live "Deleted" folder wasn't localised was fixed in bug 1320191. You can check this in TB 60 ESR available now.

What are the remaining issues? BTW, I came here from bug 1489779.

Comment 20

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Attachment: 543227-draft-outbox.patch

Same patch as this one which was a total success ;-)
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/cfa1e1483a5e

Also see:
https://support.mozilla.org/fr/kb/configurer-les-dossiers-speciaux-dun-compte-imap#w_affectation-des-noms-de-dossiers-corrects-dans-thunderbird

TB Name   Dossier        Orange.fr, SFR.fr, Neuf.fr   Yahoo.fr    Gmx.fr
=======   =======        ==========================   ========    ======
Drafts    Brouillons     DRAFT                        Draft       Brouillons
Sent      Envoyés        OUTBOX                       Sent        Envoyés
Trash     Corbeille      TRASH                        Trash       Corbeille
Junk      Indésirables   QUARANTAINE                  Bulk Mail   DossierSpam

Comment 21

[:aceman]

Comment on attachment 9008509 [details] [diff] [review]
543227-draft-outbox.patch

Review of attachment 9008509 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks.

::: mailnews/base/util/nsMsgDBFolder.cpp
@@ +3433,5 @@
> +static bool
> +hasSentName(const nsAString& name)
> +{
> +  // Some IMAP providers call the folder "Outbox". If the application is non-English,
> +  // we want to use the localised name instead.

In TB "Outbox" folder is something else, not Sent. So if providers really call Outbox folder for Sent (not "unsent", "queued to be sent out"), please expand this comment to mention it explicitly.

Comment 22

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Attachment: 543227-draft-outbox.patch (v2)

I've added a large comment for outbox and some home-made caching for the non-English test. No need to call that a million times.

Comment 23

[:aceman]

Comment on attachment 9008563 [details] [diff] [review]
543227-draft-outbox.patch (v2)

Review of attachment 9008563 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

::: mailnews/base/util/nsMsgDBFolder.cpp
@@ +3411,5 @@
> +  if (isEnglish == -1) {
> +    nsAutoCString locale;
> +    mozilla::intl::LocaleService::GetInstance()->GetAppLocaleAsLangTag(locale);
> +    isEnglish = (locale.EqualsLiteral("en") ||
> +                 StringBeginsWith(locale, NS_LITERAL_CSTRING("en-"))) ? 1 : 0;

Yeah, this could be slow when run for each folder.

@@ +3413,5 @@
> +    mozilla::intl::LocaleService::GetInstance()->GetAppLocaleAsLangTag(locale);
> +    isEnglish = (locale.EqualsLiteral("en") ||
> +                 StringBeginsWith(locale, NS_LITERAL_CSTRING("en-"))) ? 1 : 0;
> +  }
> +  return isEnglish ? false : true;

Would 'return !isEnglish' work? Or make it isNonEnglish so it does not need to be negated each time.

Comment 24

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #23)
> Would 'return !isEnglish' work? 
Yes, we wonder ;-)

> Or make it isNonEnglish so it does not need to be negated each time.
Well, that's not pretty either. I'll thing about it.

Comment 25

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/5db89a74a3cd
Cater for special folders being called 'Draft' and 'Outbox' by certain IMAP providers. r=aceman

Comment 26

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Sorry, I couldn't come up with a more legible solution.
  isEnglish = (locale.EqualsLiteral("en") || ...
and
  return isEnglish ? false : true;
seems pretty clear.

The alternative
  return (isEnglish == 0);
didn't look better.

Using
  isNonEnglish = !(locale.EqualsLiteral("en") || ...
would have worked, but then
  // -1: not retrieved yet, 0: English, 1: non-English.
  static int isNonEnglish = -1;
would have looked a little strange. In the end it would have been
  return (bool)isNonEnglish;
or
  return isNonEnglish ? true : false;

Comment 27

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Attachment: Screenshot showing that the fix works

I got this from a French contributor who has an account at sfr.fr. DRAFT and OUTBOX are now properly mapped, the junk folder which has a French name "QUARANTAINE" isn't since we can't hard-code all non-standard names IPSs may choose.

Comment 28

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

TB 60.1/60.2 ESR:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-esr60/rev/7403415b8190a3bd8601f1d92471b6871649ccf0

Comment 29

[Landry Breuil (:gaston)]

I'll also note that the two 'Trash' folders are 'expected' since the sfr.fr server advertises 'TRASH' and 'Trash' in the imap folder subscribe dialog. But DRAFT and OUTBOX are fine now :)

Comment 30

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

How sad. But you can unsubscribe from one of them, no?

I've been thinking about the "QUARANTAINE" folder a bit. Basically TB tries to honour any folder names which are already localised by the IMAP provider, see comment #20. So the French names of Gmx.fr, like "DossierSpam", would be honoured. Where an ISP/IMAP provider of a non-English country run their servers in English, TB will try to localise "standard" names, like "Inbox", "Sent", etc. We now cater for a few non-standard names, like "Deleted" (Hotmails) and "Draft" or "Outbox" (some French providers). TB sadly cannot detect *bad* server configuration, for example of sfr.fr, where the Inbox is in English and detected to be localised, and the junk/SPAM folder is in French, "QUARANTAINE", that is already translated and sadly in ugly all-uppercase and thus not localised by TB.

A more sophisticated solution would be to provide preferences to store names that should be forced to be localised, and/or localisation where the localisers have to provide those names.

Comment 31

[Stéphane CESARI]

I will try tommorrow morning...

Thank you.

(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2) from comment #30)
> How sad. But you can unsubscribe from one of them, no?
> 
> I've been thinking about the "QUARANTAINE" folder a bit. Basically TB tries
> to honour any folder names which are already localised by the IMAP provider,
> see comment #20. So the French names of Gmx.fr, like "DossierSpam", would be
> honoured. Where an ISP/IMAP provider of a non-English country run their
> servers in English, TB will try to localise "standard" names, like "Inbox",
> "Sent", etc. We now cater for a few non-standard names, like "Deleted"
> (Hotmails) and "Draft" or "Outbox" (some French providers). TB sadly cannot
> detect *bad* server configuration, for example of sfr.fr, where the Inbox is
> in English and detected to be localised, and the junk/SPAM folder is in
> French, "QUARANTAINE", that is already translated and sadly in ugly
> all-uppercase and thus not localised by TB.
> 
> A more sophisticated solution would be to provide preferences to store names
> that should be forced to be localised, and/or localisation where the
> localisers have to provide those names.

Comment 32

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

TB 63 beta:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-beta/rev/5f51ae99fa9a

Comment 33

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

(In reply to Stéphane CESARI from comment #31)
> I will try tommorrow morning...
Can you try the fix on a Daily/Nightly build from here:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-central-l10n/
Needs to be from the 13th September or later.

Comment 34

[Stéphane CESARI]

Bonsoir Jorg K,

It's done... Everything is allright now...

Thank you for your help indeed...
(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2) from comment #33)
> (In reply to Stéphane CESARI from comment #31)
> > I will try tommorrow morning...
> Can you try the fix on a Daily/Nightly build from here:
> http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-central-l10n/
> Needs to be from the 13th September or later.

Comment 35

[Bjoern Voigt]

My problem with Thunderbird is, that I use a German version of Thunderbird, but my draft folder has the standard name "Draft" on the Dovecot IMAP server. For testing I deleted any other drafts folder (especially the "Entwürfe" folder, which has the ugly UTF-7 name "Entw&APw-rfe" on the IMAP server) manually and made sure that the "subscriptions" file in the Maildir directory does not contain the Entw&APw-rfe folder anymore.

Unfortunately, if I start Thunderbird, the folder Entw&APw-rfe is created again. Now Thunderbird shows two Entwürfe folders (one is in fact the Drafts folder on the IMAP server and one is the newly created Entw&APw-rfe folder on the IMAP server; I found this information in folder properties of the two Entwürfe folders in TB). Changing the draft folder in account dialog does not help.

I use Thunderbird 60.3.3. Will the patch also solve my problem?

Comment 36

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

The patch was included in TB 60.2.1. We now detect draft/drafts, sent/outgoing, trash/deleted as the appropriate folders and facilitate localisation.

In case of German, the Draft folder would be detected and displayed localised as Entwürfe. This didn't happen pre-60.2.1 since it would only accept Drafts (plural). TB should not create an Entwürfe folder at all. Are you sure there isn't some left-over configuration with that name? Does this also happen on a new profile?

Comment 37

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> Are you sure there isn't some left-over configuration with that name? Does this also happen on a new profile?

Also check a new mailbox on the same server (you seem to be running a local Dovecot mail server). There may be leftovers in the server account.

Comment 38

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Comment on attachment 9008563 [details] [diff] [review]
543227-draft-outbox.patch (v2)

A question about the code.

>+static bool
>+hasDraftsName(const nsAString& name)
>+{
>+  // Some IMAP providers call the folder "Draft". If the application is non-English,
>+  // we want to use the localised name instead.
>+  return name.LowerCaseEqualsLiteral("drafts") ||
>+         (name.LowerCaseEqualsLiteral("draft") && nonEnglishApp());
>+}

OK, this is a heuristic. That's fair enough, if we don't know any better.
But: I think this heuristic is already implemented somewhere else.
There's a good chance that the two heuristics are not in agreement and stomp on each other.

I found https://searchfox.org/comm-central/source/mailnews/base/util/nsMsgDBFolder.cpp#3836 , but I think there are other places as well.

> NS_IMETHODIMP nsMsgDBFolder::SetPrettyName(const nsAString& name)
> {
>   nsresult rv;
> 
>   //Set pretty name only if special flag is set and if it the default folder name
>   if (mFlags & nsMsgFolderFlags::Inbox && name.LowerCaseEqualsLiteral("inbox"))
>     rv = SetName(kLocalizedInboxName);
>-  else if (mFlags & nsMsgFolderFlags::SentMail && name.LowerCaseEqualsLiteral("sent"))
>+  else if (mFlags & nsMsgFolderFlags::SentMail && hasSentName(name))
>     rv = SetName(kLocalizedSentName);
>-  else if (mFlags & nsMsgFolderFlags::Drafts && name.LowerCaseEqualsLiteral("drafts"))
>+  else if (mFlags & nsMsgFolderFlags::Drafts && hasDraftsName(name))

Here, you're setting the "pretty name", *only if* the heuristic matches.

But for servers that support the SPECIAL-USE extension, we know from the server (!) which folders are Draft, Sent etc.. IIRC, that's what sets the flags for nsMsgFolderFlags::Drafts etc., unless the user overrides it in the preferences dialog.
https://searchfox.org/comm-central/source/mailnews/imap/src/nsImapMailFolder.cpp#1174
https://searchfox.org/comm-central/source/mailnews/imap/src/nsImapServerResponseParser.cpp#846
So, here, you're overriding a definite knowledge from the server with a heuristic.

So, let's say it's a German user using Gmail or another big ISP, and the server returns "Draft" as folder name, and sets the Drafts SPECIAL-USE or XLIST flag. We should show the folder as "Entwürfe", not as "Draft". That would have worked before this patch, and broken with the patch.

I don't know how relevant that is in practice. And you're only changing the name (or avoiding to change the name), not the semantic or special meaning of the folder, so I guess the possible damage is contained.

Still I think that we should have the heuristic only in one place, and we should use the flag, esp. if the flag comes from the server. Is it possible that your patch has unintended side effects in cases where the server returns the folder flags and definitely tells us which is the Drafts folder, but we ignore it here, and it does not get translated?

Maybe I completely misunderstand this patch, so please forgive me, if I do.

Comment 39

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

The original code comes from here:
-  else if (mFlags & nsMsgFolderFlags::Trash && name.LowerCaseEqualsLiteral("trash"))
+  else if (mFlags & nsMsgFolderFlags::Trash && hasTrashName(name))
from bug 1320191 which is in nsMsgDBFolder::SetPrettyName().

So all this relies on the fact that the flags have already been set on the folder. So if the server tells us, this is the trash, but like in the case of Micro$ofts "Deleted" folder, didn't match the standard naming, we didn't localise the name. So a German user saw "Posteingang" (localised inbox) next to "Deleted" which wasn't recognised.

So I added a little heuristic and in this bug extended this to draft/drafts and sent/outbox. I don't see what that would break since it only affects the display of a folder. Not the creation, not the flags, not anything else.

https://searchfox.org/comm-central/source/mailnews/imap/src/nsImapMailFolder.cpp#1174
https://searchfox.org/comm-central/source/mailnews/imap/src/nsImapServerResponseParser.cpp#846
are the pieces of code that set those flags based on the IMAP response. BTW, those non-permalinks will be out-of-date tomorrow, so please *never* *ever* post non-permalinks into comments.

> So, let's say it's a German user using Gmail or another big ISP, and the server
> returns "Draft" as folder name, and sets the Drafts SPECIAL-USE or XLIST flag.
> We should show the folder as "Entwürfe", not as "Draft". That would have worked
> before this patch, and broken with the patch.
In fact, exactly the opposite. Before the patch, we didn't localise "draft" despite the flag, now we do since the heuristic looks for "draft" and "drafts" in non-English apps. The idea was not to force "Deleted" onto "Trash" since English users can understand what "Deleted" is.

Lastly, https://searchfox.org/comm-central/source/mailnews/base/util/nsMsgDBFolder.cpp#3836 is in nsMsgDBFolder::AddSubfolder() where TB adds one of its standard folders, so I believe the heuristic isn't needed there. Please don't ask me why we don't set the drafts flag for a drafts folder there :-(

Comment 40

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> So I added a little heuristic and in this bug extended this to draft/drafts and sent/outbox.

Ah, yes, so this heuristic was there before, I indeed misread the patch, sorry.

> The idea was not to force "Deleted" onto "Trash" since English users can understand what "Deleted" is.

I see.

I guess what I'd do is to check only the folder flag and not the folder name, therefore relying entirely on either the heuristic in the earlier place or the server response.

I do think it's a good idea to avoid renaming the folder for English apps, because the underlying names are usually in English and English users don't need "Deleted" renamed to "Trash". In other words, I think the change you made here was good. My problem was with the code that existed before your change.

Comment 41

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

(In reply to Ben Bucksch (:BenB) from comment #40)
> I guess what I'd do is to check only the folder flag and not the folder
> name, therefore relying entirely on either the heuristic in the earlier
> place or the server response.
Welcome to the club of people who were racking their brain about it. Read bug 1320191 to see how much opposition this had.

If you went purely by folder flag then you'd discard any localised folder names. See comment #20 for examples. As you can see, Gmx.fr already provides localised folder names under the cover and we don't want to localise those.

Assume IMAP provider GMX.de provided folder "Alles Mist" with the trash flag. Webmail users see "Alles Mist", but if we went purely by the flag, we'd force the folder to "Papierkorb" in a German version, which is undesired.

So we're in the tricky situation where we need to recognise certain folders that need to be localised since the Mail provider uses non-conformant English names, but not localise already localised folders. Hence the heuristic in a losing battle. Going back to comment #20, DRAFT, OUTBOX and TRASH are now recognised for Orange.fr, but QUARANTAINE is not since this is already a French word and it sticks out like bulls eyes in the UI, attachment 9009355 [details]. Of course the French know better ;-(

Comment 42

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Yes, heuristics will never work in all scenarios. Even attempting to make them work in all these cases is indeed a losing battle. That's why SPECIAL-USE/XLIST is nice.

Comment 43

[Bjoern Voigt]

(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+1) from comment #36)
> In case of German, the Draft folder would be detected and displayed
> localised as Entwürfe. This didn't happen pre-60.2.1 since it would only
> accept Drafts (plural). TB should not create an Entwürfe folder at all. Are
> you sure there isn't some left-over configuration with that name? Does this
> also happen on a new profile?

I created a new user on the Dovecot server, created the folders Maildir and Maildir/.Drafts and a new Thunderbird profile. The "Entwürfe" folder was created as I saved my first mail draft. But I found, that I had this mailbox definition in Dovecot:

/etc/dovecot/conf.d/15-mailboxes.conf

  mailbox "Entwürfe" {
    auto = subscribe
    special_use = \Drafts
  }

After I deleted this definition, restarted Dovecot and started the Thunderbird profile setup again, drafts were correctly saved into Maildir/.Drafts. The Drafts folder is correctly localized as "Entwürfe". To summarize, I had a configuration problem in Dovecot.

But there is still something were Thunderbird 60.3.3 works a bit unexpected.

I created a new user with INBOX and Drafts folders (maildirmake Maildir; maildirmake.dovecot Maildir/.Drafts). In Dovecot I configured two drafts folders:

  mailbox "Drafts" {
    auto = no
    special_use = \Drafts
  }
  mailbox "Entwürfe" {
    auto = no
    special_use = \Drafts
  }

I would expect, that Thunderbird sees, that Dovecot shows the special use folders for drafts "Drafts" and "Entwürfe" and that Thunderbird uses the folder which already exists, this is "Drafts" in my case. But Thunderbird creates the folder "Entwürfe" when the first mail draft is saved.

Comment 44

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

I don't think we can guarantee any order, and having two drafts folder on the server is certainly a server configuration error.

Comment 45

[Bjoern Voigt]

(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+1) from comment #44)
> I don't think we can guarantee any order, and having two drafts folder on
> the server is certainly a server configuration error.

Do you think, that my current server configuration in comment #43 contains errors? I would say, it is not ideal to have multiple draft folders. But it is a work-around for the situation, that some mail clients do not respect IMAP special use options from the server at all and create their own folders for drafts, sent messages, templates, trash etc. Often the folder names from such mail clients are localized and well-known. If I configure such names on the IMAP server, mail clients which respect special use options have the chance to see, that folders for drafts, sent messages, templates, trash etc. are already created. At the end the user may have less duplicate folders.

Would it not be possible to loop over all special use option folders from the IMAP server and stop with the first existing folder with the required special use option and use the folder for Thunderbird?