Technical Summary
Some IMAP message stores include special-use mailboxes, such as those
used to hold draft messages or sent messages. Many mail clients
allow users to specify where draft or sent messages should be put,
but configuring them requires that the user know which mailboxes the
server has set aside for these purposes. This extension adds new
mailbox attributes that a server MAY include in IMAP LIST command
responses to identify special-use mailboxes to the client, easing
configuration.
Working Group Summary
There were some concerns about the number of IMAP CAPABILITY strings and
about moving of existing special-use attributes, but there have been no
complaints about the end result.
Document Quality
This extension is based on Google's XLIST extension for GMail. Google has
expressed interest in implementing this extension as well, among several
other server vendors. Many clients have already implemented XLIST, and they
will either automatically or with very small modifications gain support for
this extension
Personnel
Timo Sirainen is the Document Shepherd for this document.
Alexey Melnikov is the Responsible Area Director.
RFC Editor Note
In Section 7, please replace the 1st paragraph to read:
OLD:
LIST response: There are no security issues with conveying special-
use information to a client.
NEW:
LIST response:
Conveying special-use information to a client exposes a small bit of
extra information that could be of value to an attacker. Knowing, for
example, that a particular mailbox contains pointers to every message
the user has (\All) might be of particular value. If the IMAP channel
is not protected from passive eavesdropping, this could be an issue.
In Section 8.6:
OLD:
Name: /shared/specialuse
NEW:
Name: /private/specialuse