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badbishop
Asked: 2012-02-21 09:37:45 +0800 CST

INBOX, Inbox, and MS Outlook 2007

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I have a Cyrus-IMAP server with altnamespace:yes and unixhierarchysep: yes. I want my sent messages to be stored on server, the INBOX.Sent being the most obvious choice. Setting this in Apple Mail was easy (Mailboxes>Use this folder for...>Sent). With Outlook 2007, however, I've run into a strange problem.

The Outlook documentation suggests:

" ... In the Internet E-mail Settings dialog box, click the Folders tab. Folders tab in Internet E-mail Settings dialog box To choose a custom folder for saving your sent items, click Choose an existing folder or create a new folder to save your sent items for this account in." (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/change-where-sent-e-mail-messages-are-saved-HA010164216.aspx)

OK, I choose Inbox.Sent, but the sent messages are still saved in a local Outlook folder. If I try to move them to Inbox.Sent, I get an error message: server said the mailbox does not exist. Yes, what does exist, is INBOX.Sent, and both SquirrelMail and Apple Mail store sent messages there. Now, if I create a subfolder in Inbox.Sent, like Inbox/Sent/test, it DOES exist from the server perspective (and sent mail can be stored there). But Inbox/Sent still cannot be used for that, and INBOX.Sent is not visible in any folder list.

The most bizarre is that Outlook recognizes the existence of INBOX.Sent by storing its own test messages there (those generated while creating the account).

After googling half a day I'm out of wits. Please, help.

Thanks.

Tom

outlook-2007 imap cyrus

1 Answers

  1. OK, it looks that I understand what's the problem.

    Outlook 2007 takes folder names as case-sensitive, while Cyrus and the rest of the world take them as case-insensitive. So when Outlook asks Cyrus to list the available folders, it gets INBOX.Sent and other INBOX.* folders for a reply. No "Inbox.Sent" among them? Outlook just takes it as the destination folder doesn't exist and doesn't save anything on server. At the same time, it continues to insist there IS "Inbox.Sent" on the server by showing it among IMAP folders! And if you try to tell the server to create "Inbox.Sent" folder, server responds that the folder exists, as Cyrus takes INBOX as case insensitive!

    The workaround is to fit the rest of the world to the Microsoft peculiarities by forcibly creating "Inbox.Sent" folder before some other e-mail client creates INBOX.Sent. Then it works with the rest of them, except that you have to specify "Inbox.Sent" explicitly to save the sent messages. And if the client does not allow it (some phone clients), then an extra Sent folder is created.

    I've tested it on Apple Mail, Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010, Thunderbird 10.0.2, TheBat! 5.

    If anyone has a better idea, please share.

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