There are at least a couple of mail clients that are configured to
leave mail on the server by default using POP3. Mail.app in OS X is
one of them, and various versions of Eudora have been known to
default to this setting as well.

If there is mail in the cur folder in the maildir, either the POP3
client is configured to leave mail on the server, or you've got a
webmail client reading the mail either using IMAP or reading directly
from the maildirs (sqwebmail, for example).

I personally wish there was a way on the POP3 server to prohibit the
"Leave Mail on Server" behavior, because it's a real pain in the
ass. This is why IMAP was built. It's also one of the reasons we
are moving to dovecot, because courier has major problems with
duplicate emails when POP3 clients leave mail on the server.

-- Roger J. Weeks Systems & Network Administrator Mendocino Community Network

On Jan 5, 2006, at 6:06 AM, Wally Winchester wrote:

Thanks for this.

On Thu, 5 Jan 2006 14:05:16 +0000, "Simon Waters" <simonw@zynet.net> said:

...

On Thursday 05 Jan 2006 13:57, Wally Winchester wrote:

...

Hi, I use Sarge's dovecot for a pop3 mail collection server. IMAP is not used at all. It works well, but I would like to know why one of the accounts also keeps a copy of all e-mail copies in the cur/ folder?

That is "maildir" not "IMAP".

All mailboxes are maildir, but only POP3 is used to collect the mail. IMAP is not used at all, so I am confused about anything existing
in the cur/ folder.

...

maildir is an alternative form of storing email.

At a guess(!) the file name their email would have been stored in, already existed as a directory, so dovecot is trying to "cope" with an error.

When they empty there inbox, just try renaming the whole folder, and sending them some email, if it creates an mbox you know what was wrong.

I deleted the cur/ directory, and everything under it (since cur/
holds mails already downloaded). A test mail seems to work.

I'll see if it happens again..

...

Alternatively convert everyone to maildir.

-- Wally Winchester wally_winchester@fastmail.fm

-- http://www.fastmail.fm - And now for something completely different…

On Thu, 5 Jan 2006 15:19:52 +0100, "Lorens" <dovecot.fdop@tagged.lorens.org> said:

On Thu, Jan 05, 2006 at 05:57:07AM -0800, Wally Winchester wrote:

...

Hi, I use Sarge's dovecot for a pop3 mail collection server. IMAP is not used at all. It works well, but I would like to know why one of the accounts also keeps a copy of all e-mail copies in the cur/ folder?

Because the MUA popping the mail is configured to "leave messages on server". Sometimes it's called "Keep unread messages on server" or variations on the theme. It's usually configured in the same place on the MUA as the username and password for the account.

If the answer only creates more questions for you, you'll probably find lots of information on search engine now that you have some decent keywords to use :-)

HANY everybody

You were all right - the mua was configured to leave mail on the server. *sigh*

Thanks!

Wally Winchester wally_winchester@fastmail.fm

-- http://www.fastmail.fm - IMAP accessible web-mail