Re: Any Advice on changing from POP to IMAP ?

Am Dienstag, 16. Dezember 2008 schrieb Robert Smits:
> Thanks to all of you for outlining pros and cons of changing. I'm
> rather more inclined to go ahead, but how does one deal with your
> filters, antivirus and bogus email? I have more than hundred
> filters splitting mail off into its own folder, and currently am
> quite happy with clam and bogofilter.
>
> Do I have to create all these folders on imap or will they just
> show up in the right place  when I connect to imap?

It depends. In general you have to create all folders by your own, but 
you can use scripts to do it for you. But then you have to know how to 
add imap folders by scripting.

For filter mails there are three general different approaches.
1. filter in your mail client
2. filter on your server before storage server (i.e. procmail)
3. filter in your mail storage server (i.e. sieve for cyrus and 
dovecot)

1. is the most obvious and not usable if you want to use your mail 
from different mailclients (web, kmail on linux, thunderbird on 
windows etc.)

2. gives you almost any freedom to parse and filter mail. It is the 
most flexible way, but can not be used for virtual mailaccounts and 
always starts a new process, which takes system resources.

3. is not as flexible as 2. but it is very well integrated in the mail 
storage system and handles moving and copying very well. You don't 
have to set up a additional process in your mail flow. But usually you 
can not start external programms.

I use cyrus imap server for about eight years and filter with build in 
sieve filter language. Mails received at my postfix server, are 
handled over to amavisd vor spam and virus checking, go back to 
postfix and finally are stored in cyrus imap. 

Btw: The configuration is done with a little mostly unknown tool named 
GOsa. I set up a central active directory like LDAP server where 
almost all user settings are stored (only kerberos credentials are 
stored in a seperate DB - this is a restriction of MIT kerberos)

I never ever lost Mails with my imap server.

>
> Bob

Martin