Mail.app and IMAP

[Richard Sheppard]

Is it me, or is Mail's IMAP support rubbish?

I've switched over to Micro$lop EntouRAGE while on holiday to ensure I don't
lose the message I'm sending.

If anyone uses IMAP with Mail.app successfully, do you have any advice?

Cheers,

Richard

[Adam Chester]

Richard,

IMAP support in mail is appalling, however there are a few things
that make it more bearable.
You can tell mail to use it's own sent items mailbox to store saved
messages, and it then joins the messages it sends to the sent IMAP
mailbox. This made a big difference to me. You can also do the same
with the drafts and the junk. To do this click on the relevant
mailbox in mail, then select "Use This Mailbox for" in the mailboxes
menu, choose the appropriate item et voila.
IMAP support still sucks, but this makes things a little easier.

Cheers,
adam

[Hampton Associates]

interesting - i have always used mail and IMAP on 3 IMAP accounts and a
.mac account. i disliked entourage intensely very early on.

I have never had a problem with mail and IMAP - however, it might be
worth pointing out that as a general good practice guideline for mail
and ANY IMAP client i do only sync the inbox syncing everything else is
just unnessecary bandwidth theivery for me.

It's also worth pointing out that anyone with a .mac account is using
IMAP, so you should all feel free to chime in on this one.

[Robert Goldsmith]

I use Mail.app solely for all of my email and have had very few
problems with it. I use it with my own IMAP server and my current
work Exchange server and have, in the past, used it on a number of
other IMAP servers at home and at university. I can't ever remember
loosing email and it happily syncs all my mail boxes. I also use
multiple machines with my IMAP setups (work and home) and Mail on all
of these machines has no problems syncing changes made since the last
time it was run (new/deleted/read/replied/forwarded etc.). There have
also never been any problems syncing with changes made via the
webmail system I run either.

I would generally strongly advise using IMAP and keeping drafts and
sent mail on the server (as well as, of course, all other mail
folders you may have created) so they are available from everywhere.
In my case, all of my mail - even that sorted into folders manually
or via a filter - is available at home, at work, on my laptop and
over webmail. I can even access it over my mobile phone (via
bluetooth and laptop or via the mobile's built-in imap client).

My only minor IMAP related complaint with Mail is that it opens and
closes many connections to the server - which isn't normally a
problem but can be with Exchange servers. I know for a fact that Mail
in 10.5 will support the 'IDLE' extension to IMAP and this should
significantly improve matters :)

If you are worried about bandwidth, Mail is quite capable of working
offline with IMAP servers - and syncing when you go back online. It
is also capable of only downloading mail rather than also downloading
all the attachments so, if you are on a costly mobile network, you
can still read that email from your friend without having to download
the 15Mb of images they attached and paying a fortune in data bills ;)

Exactly what bits of Mail's IMAP support are causing you issues and
what improvements would you like to see?

Robert
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