IMAP .mailboxlist... Mail.app and how to hide it?

[obelix]

Hey All,

I've been a thunderbird user for a long time and I've just recently switched to Mail.app. I've been using IMAP but it displays all these hidden . folders. The one that is most prominent is the .mailboxlist folder which seems to contain a list of all the mailbox folders I have.

Is there a way to hide all these folders? It never used to do this in Thunderbird and having multiple hidden .mailbox folders is most annoying.

Also can one have more than one folder level using IMAP? I can create 1 level of folders but I can't nest anything inside of those folders.

 

[mkrishnan]

Also can one have more than one folder level using IMAP? I can create 1 level of folders but I can't nest anything inside of those folders.

Yes, I am able to do this in my IMAP account using Mail.app. Although I do not store files on the server...FWIW...I usually use offline folders (which can also be nested). But I tried it and I was able to create nested folders on the server.

Can you show us a picture of this .folder thing? I'm not sure what you're talking about. I don't think it's a feature of either Mail.app or IMAP that is causing this -- I think you actually have some sort of strange folder configuration in your IMAP account.

Let me make sure I understand you correctly, though:

- You got an IMAP account.
- You used this account with Thunderbird, and kept all mail on the server
- You opened this account in Mail.app, thereby gaining access to all the same mail because it was on the server already, but you also got all these dotfiles.

I googled and saw other threads elsewhere discussing these files in the context of Thunderbird, but I have used IMAP in a number of programs (Mail.app, Outlook and Pine are the ones with which I spent the most time) and I have never seen this phenomenon. Were these folders *created* by T-bird? I wonder if you can set the path in the advanced tab of the IMAP preferences to be ~/.mailboxlist or something like that? I'm not sure.....

 

[obelix]

- You got an IMAP account.

Yes

- You used this account with Thunderbird, and kept all mail on the server

Correct.

- You opened this account in Mail.app, thereby gaining access to all the same mail because it was on the server already, but you also got all these dotfiles.

Yes exactly.

I have never seen these . folders in any other program than mail.app and every time I delete them, mail.app creates them again. I have no idea where thy come from but I can't view them online in squirrelmail or anything else either so it has to be a os x issue.

 

[mkrishnan]

Ahhhhh.....

Squirrelmail is an important part of the puzzle. Check this webpage out -- scroll down to the part about Mac OS X.

http://www.squirrelmail.org/wiki/ManagingYourMail

What is happening is that squirrelmail is trying to put its IMAP storage in the same place on your Mac as Mail is trying to put its copy of your mail. You need to change this -- this is what is screwing you up. Mail needs these folders located within ~/library/mail but does not normally show them. But because your folders-to-be-shown on your IMAP server are in the same place, you see them anyway.

 

[mfacey]

Yes



Correct.



Yes exactly.

I have never seen these . folders in any other program than mail.app and every time I delete them, mail.app creates them again. I have no idea where thy come from but I can't view them online in squirrelmail or anything else either so it has to be a os x issue.

How did you set up this IMAP account? My imap accoutn just comes up in my Inbox list as a regular mailbox (with sent, trash and drafts as sub-folders). I've never seen a @ icon like that before.

Just so we're clear on this: what version of mail are you using?

 

[obelix]

Just thought I'd show a screenshot of what this looks like... a bunch of gobbledygook.

I am using Mac OS X Tiger on 10.4.2

 

[obelix]

Ahhhhh.....

Squirrelmail is an important part of the puzzle. Check this webpage out -- scroll down to the part about Mac OS X.

http://www.squirrelmail.org/wiki/ManagingYourMail

What is happening is that squirrelmail is trying to put its IMAP storage in the same place on your Mac as Mail is trying to put its copy of your mail. You need to change this -- this is what is screwing you up. Mail needs these folders located within ~/library/mail but does not normally show them. But because your folders-to-be-shown on your IMAP server are in the same place, you see them anyway.

So is there an easy way to fix this? That hideously formatted page on squirrelmail looked like a lot of work and a bunch of command line stuff.