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I'm running Dovecot on my mail server and storing messages in the Maildir++ format. I have the following directories (as well as the usual Maildir directories) in /var/mail/user:

.Something.2013
.Something.2013.Foo
.Something.2013.Bar
.Something.2014.Foo
.Something.2014.Bar

When I view these directories in a mail client (Roundcube WebMail, Apple Mail) the Something/2014 folder has a slightly different icon and doesn't allow mail to be put into it, presumably because it doesn't actually exist as a mail directory.

Oddly enough, none of the above directories are listed in the subscriptions file; just Something is.

Can I just create this folder with mkdir .Something.2014 or is there more I need to do?

DanielGibbs
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  • what version Dovecot are you runnin (2 or 1) and what is the mail_location setting in the dovecot.conf? It would also be helpful to know ownership / permissions of the /var/mail/user files. – Ed King Jan 23 '15 at 16:50
  • 2.1.7 I think, `mail_location = maildir:/var/mail/%u`, files are 600 and directories are `drwx--S---`, all owned by `vmail:vmail`, although I have root privileges so that's not a problem. – DanielGibbs Jan 23 '15 at 20:15
  • Can you post the dovecot config? It sounds like the the folders icons are gray -- is that correct? – Ed King Jan 25 '15 at 19:25
  • Uh, there are a lot of config files and most of it probably isn't relevant; were there any particular directives you were interested in? Yes, the folder icons are probably grey. I think this is a more of a Maildir thing than Dovecot. – DanielGibbs Jan 27 '15 at 10:43
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    Maildir is the format, dovecot is the application using the format -- you can't really separate them. The config files chain each other, you can use grep to remove the comments. I can't replicate what you've got without knowing how you're configured (what options are on or off). – Ed King Jan 27 '15 at 16:29
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    Start with the main file -- on Debian it's in /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf. The others will chain from that, but most likely aren't included. – Ed King Jan 27 '15 at 16:36

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Yes, you can simply create the missing .Something.2014 folder. It looks different because having that missing folder is valid--it's a type of folder that may only contain child folders, not messages (the child folders can contain messages, though). Most of the time, this is simply an error due to not creating the complete folder chain (in this case, not creating .Something.2014) or accidental use of a "." in a folder name. You can see this if you create a folder in Thunderbird with a "." in the name.

MFP
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