Re: Exchange calendar entries shown as IMAP folder

Thomas Schwinge <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> So, ~five years later I've run into the same issue that had been
> discussed here; using getmail with outlook.office365.com etc.:

Replying to the correct 5-year-old mailing list message to continue the
thread: ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED.

> > So that definitely looks like you've configured getmail to retrieve from an
> > IMAP folder called "Calendar" (either explicitly, or by leaving it at the
> > default of "all").
> 
> It's not the default (at least nowadays);

Actually, I don't think ALL has ever been the default.  I could be wrong;
getmail's pushing 25 years old at this point.  I don't know why I said it was
the default above.

re: MSExchange/o365/outlook/whatever interacting with getmail's ALL...

> However, things get "interesting" if getmail's 'delete' or 'delete_after'
> options are active: that'll then actually wipe your calendar!  ..., which
> is "nice" in a way ;-) but not all too useful...  (No harm done here;
> tested this on an old account.)

Ouch.  That is painful, at least if removing it from the IMAP view of the
calendar actually removes the event from your calendar on the server.

> Can we get a warning placed with 'mailboxes = ALL',
> <https://pyropus.ca./software/getmail/configuration.html#retriever-parameters>,
> to note these undesirable consequences?

Definitely.

> I suppose that you're not interested in spending time on making 'mailboxes =
> ALL' more useful in this Microsoft setting, so I guess we're back to
> manually listing 'mailboxes'.

I might be, if two conditions were met:

1) Be able to determine, after connecting to the server, whether this calendar
functionality is present as a fake IMAP mail folder, without guessing.  No
idea if that's possible.

2) The fix has to be universal.  That magic IMAP folder may be named
u"Calendar", but what's its name if your Windows/Outlook/MSExchange/o365
account is configured to use a non-English language?  If that name is
localized, I don't want to touch it.  I can't advertise the feature as safe if
it's only safe on the English/French/German/whatever versions I've tested and
not a bunch of others that I haven't, and which I may not even know exist.

And if it's not safe, it's not going in, because I can't give a false sense of
security.  "getmail will automatically ignore your Exchange calendar entries,
so it won't blow away your calendar.  Unless you're using a non-English
version of Exchange." is not a good way to generate goodwill with users who
don't obsessively scrutinize documentation, which approximates to "all users".

Charles
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Charles Cazabon
GPL'ed software available at:               http://pyropus.ca/software/
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