[MacTUG] IMAP server prefixes?

[Mike Patterson]

Unlike certain other (*cough*Thunderbird*cough*) IMAP clients, Apple's Mail seems to respect/enforce the server prefix a user types into their account settings. It also seems to autodetect what the IMAP server might tell it the prefix is.

I'm not an IMAP expert, but I believe that mailservices offers several possible prefixes. "INBOX" for your regular boxes, "Archive" for… the archive folders, and then "user" for any shared mailboxes to which you have access.

Naturally, when I first set Mail up, I told it "INBOX" and it happily handles all *my* mailboxes, but I'm completely blind to Archive and the shared folders. I removed the prefix entirely and, while it did see Archive and user prefixes afterwards, the results were less than satisfactory - it considered everything under that prefix to effectively be my inbox, so searching was somewhat broken. Also, as soon as it tried to save a draft, it said hey, the server told me the prefix is INBOX, I have to fix this for you if you want to ever save drafts again, you putz… or words to that effect. I had a choice, so I allowed it to fix the prefix, and of course the Archive and user prefixed boxes disappeared.

Has anybody had any luck with this in Mail? Am I the first person to try here?

Thunderbird works just great in this respect, but I switched *from* that *to* Mail for a reason. :(

Mike

-- 
The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never
does anything.  - Theodore Roosevelt