Email Folders

[justme]

I guess I never really paid much attention to it before, but this morning I was looking at the /mail/ file structure. Now I've got a couple questions about it.

Say I've got a site with 3 email accounts. Under the /mail/ directory I see 4 subdirectories: accoount1, account2, account3, and mydomain.com. Now, under the /mail/mydomain.com/ directory I see 3 subdirectories: account1, account2, and account3.

So, are /mail/account1/ and /mail/mydomain.com/account1/ simply the same or are they really different email directories?

If they are different, when I receive email at account1@mydomain.com does it show up in /mail/account1/ or /mail/mydomain.com/account1/? When I set up my mail client with the account name as account1@mydomain.com which mail folder does that point to, /mail/account1/ or /mail/mydomain.com/account1/? And, what about the other email folder, should I be worrying about it at all?

I know these are probably simple questions, but like I said, I hadn't really paid attention to this before.

Thanks
justme

[glenn]

So, are /mail/account1/ and /mail/mydomain.com/account1/ simply the same or are they really different email directories?

for my account all mail goes to /mail/mydomain.com/accountx/

If they are different, when I receive email at account1@mydomain.com does it show up in /mail/account1/ or /mail/mydomain.com/account1/?

/mail/mydomain.com/account1/

When I set up my mail client with the account name as account1@mydomain.com which mail folder does that point to, /mail/account1/ or /mail/mydomain.com/account1/? And, what about the other email folder, should I be worrying about it at all?

/mail/mydomain.com/account1/
Just ignore the others. From what I have seen they are created with the mailbox but never used.

[justme]

Thanks. I'll ignore the /mail/accountx/ folders as you suggest. But, I do notice that account1, account2, and account3 folders are different sizes, which suggests that they aren't simply created and then left alone. Something is being added into the folders. Guess I'll keep an eye on them to see if they are growing or not.

justme

[Courtly]

I'm seeing a similar issue, except it evidences itself more forcefully than just folders.

When I use Squirrel to read mail (and I haven't tried the other interfaces), I'm actually having to use the 'Folders' panel to read mail in these subfolders. And I do have mail in both folders, though all the new mail appears to be in the domain.com/foo/inbox file... It's really quite awkward.

[Courtly]

Here's what I believe it's all about:

/mail
/mail/inbox # This is your domain root account's inbox.
/mail/foo
/mail/foo/inbox # If you have Default Address set up without using a full email address (i.e. "foo"), this directory is associated with that.
/mail/domain1.com/
/mail/domain1.com/foo/
/mail/domain1.com/foo/inbox # This is for a custom account you've created, "foo@domain1.com", or a default address "foo@domain1.com".

So, when you set up Default Addressing, did you specify a domainless userid at some point, even once? If so, that would explain your "/mail/foo/" folders.

At least, that's what my testing is showing me...

[justme]

Courtly - if I understand what you're suggesting, I don't think the duplicate folder names were the result of creating email accounts with and without the domain as part of the user name. With one particular domain 19 email accounts have been established. A folder with each account name can be found under /mail/ and also under /mail/mydomain.com/. But the space taken by the duplicate folders isn't the same, so it's obvious that the same content isn't in each folder.

Oh well . . .

justme

[Courtly]

Have you checked out the contents of those files, i.e. with the file manager?

I'd be curious to see if we can figure out what they are.

[justme]

The contents of each folder is "Inbox." But as I asked in my first post . . .

If they are different, when I receive email at account1@mydomain.com does it show up in /mail/account1/ or /mail/mydomain.com/account1/? When I set up my mail client with the account name as account1@mydomain.com which mail folder does that point to, /mail/account1/ or /mail/mydomain.com/account1/?

And is it really worth worrying about?

justme

[Courtly]

I mean have you checked out the contents of the file 'inbox' to see what dates/times the messages are stamped with, and if they differ from the other mailboxes?

I for one would be curious to see, because it might be that you're not getting all your mail. That, of course, would be bad.

[Dan]

The contents of each folder is "Inbox." But as I asked in my first post . . .


And is it really worth worrying about?

justme

Nah I don't think it's really worth worrying about but for the record the actual inbox is the one that is under the domain name. You can verify this yourself by seeing the subfolders that the user creates under it.