RFC 2180 (rfc2180) - Page 3 of 14

IMAP4 Multi-Accessed Mailbox Practice

RFC 2180         IMAP4 Multi-Accessed Mailbox Practice         July 1997


3.2. The server MAY allow the DELETE command of a multi-accessed
     mailbox, but keep the information in the mailbox available for
     those clients that currently have access to the mailbox.

   When all clients have finished accessing the mailbox, it is
   permanently removed.  For clients that do not already have access to
   the mailbox, the 'ghosted' mailbox would not be available.  For
   example, it would not be returned to these clients in a subsequent
   LIST or LSUB command and would not be a valid mailbox argument to any
   other IMAP command until the reference count of clients accessing the
   mailbox reached 0.

   In some cases, this behavior may not be desirable. For example if
   someone created a mailbox with offensive or sensitive information,
   one might prefer to have the mailbox deleted and all access to the
   information contained within removed immediately, rather than
   continuing to allow access until the client closes the mailbox.

   Furthermore, this behavior, may prevent 'recycling' of the same
   mailbox name until all clients have finished accessing the original
   mailbox.

   Example:

   

             C1: A001 DELETE FOO
             S1: A001 OK Mailbox FOO is deleted.

   

             C2: B001 STORE 1 +FLAGS (\Seen)
             S2: * 1 FETCH FLAGS (\Seen)
             S2: B001 OK STORE completed

   

             C3: C001 STATUS FOO (MESSAGES)
             S3: C001 NO Mailbox does not exist

   

             C3: C002 CREATE FOO
             S3: C002 NO Mailbox FOO is still in use. Try again later.




Gahrns                       Informational