IMAP folder subscription

Mario_Cerutti · December 3, 2016, 8:13am

Being able to select which IMAP folders should synchronize automatically and which not is very crucial for business users who handle lots of messages every day. This request seems to have originated several years ago especially from business users, but apparently eM developers haven’t deemed it important so far, which in my opinion is a big mistake if eM really wants to compete against Outlook, Thunderbird and a bunch of others of clients.

I am a heavy IMAP user and having tried the application for almost one month now I would like to decide if purchasing a license makes really sense to me.

Therefore I intend to resurrect this old thread: shall we see this functionality implemented into eM soon?

Thank you!

gorlaw · April 3, 2017, 6:12am

I would like to see this as well. I have a lot of folders with email that I do not need to fully synchronize. One program that I use quite a bit is EssentialPIM (both Pro and Free) I can choose what to do with my folders. I especially like EssentialPIM’s synchronizing features. I can download messages, headers, not synchronize at all or hide the folders completely. I would really like to see these options in emClient. It’s a great product… but it could be even better.

Javier_Maria_Casares · April 3, 2017, 1:22pm

I also need this (IMAP folder subscription) and it seems there are also issues in how you handle IMAP folders as a friend of mine that tried eM Client didn’t see many folders that he has access with both MS Outlook and Thunderbird.

I couldn’t help him and he uses the same server as mine.

So, yes, a better IMAP folder subscription handling is vital for an email client.

StefanHendricks · September 23, 2017, 6:16am

I’m having the same issues, too sad that this still not important enough to be implemented

Sethf · December 21, 2017, 7:46pm

Currently having an issue where my cPanel based email hosting provider is providing duplicate Spam and Junk IMAP folders. Being able to disable one of these annoying redundant folders via an IMAP subscription module would be nice.

Gary · December 21, 2017, 8:24pm

Is this a problem with eM Client or cPanel? How does it appear on other email clients?

Sethf · December 21, 2017, 10:28pm

root cause is cPanel. Same issue across all email clients.

Unsubscribing to the extra IMAP folder would be a workaround but not the ideal solution.

Rolf_Herbert · January 24, 2018, 7:13pm

If I cant disable imap syncing of my archive folders I cant use EM, I’m not going to cart around a 500GB database of 100K old emails, thats what cloud storage is for.

I think its a big mistake not to include a fairly trivial piece of code;
1 - poll the imap server for folders on setup (you must do this already using namespace and list commands)
2 - start to sync on all be default (you do this already)
3 - present in the account options the folder list you already have
4 - allow user to deselect a folder
5 - exclude from future synchronisations and stop it if already in that folder.

Should be the work of an hour, please do it, cos its a great little client otherswise but I simply cant have GBs of redundant data knocking around on all my PCs, not to mention the time it takes to sync.

gorlaw · January 24, 2018, 8:54pm

I don’t have 500GB of old mail, but I have more than 2GB, and that amount is annoying enough.

Rolf_Herbert · January 24, 2018, 10:19pm

that should be 50gb, still it’s a strange omission as it’s a common feature and super useful.

LaoLang_Gold · August 3, 2018, 1:26am

I have some file in the folder that is not imap related, And it is giving me error all the time, how can I disable some imap folders?

Gary · August 3, 2018, 7:10am

If the message is not in an IMAP folder, then it will not be the cause of an IMAP error.

Some email providers like GMail allow you to specify which IMAP folders are visible in the email client. You need to set that through the web interface with your email provider. eM Client does not off a setting for this.

LaoLang_Gold · August 3, 2018, 3:22pm

I have some non-imap files inside the same imap directory. I need to select what files to ignore. Or a subscription list.

Gary · August 3, 2018, 3:51pm

eM Client does not offer the option of subscribing to individual IMAP folders. You need to change that setting on your server, if it supports it.

R1M · July 29, 2019, 6:56am

any update?
my IMAP database is 45GB large, with 2 copies (backup) + temporary file during fixing at startup… My harddisk is not large enough to receive all the data, where more than 80% are useless.
Regards

Gary · July 29, 2019, 7:02am

Some servers allow you to specify which folders are available for IMAP so that would be your best option. Or delete the useless information; if it is useless why keep it?

R1M · July 29, 2019, 7:20am

keeping it for other colleagues: it is not my own personnal IMAP server…

Scotty · September 9, 2021, 9:02am

I am also surprised that emClient has this lack in 2021.
Being a server admin myself, I was able to customize Devocot with a workaround. But the fact that a program with this high demand on itself after years still does not offer this basic functionality, completely destroys the otherwise good impression. How should users deal with this problem who have no means to administer the server.
I will very seriously reconsider my decision to expand productive use.

I am now curious to hear from the vendor, specifically if there is a roadmap to implement the functionality to subscribe to IMAP folders.

Gary · September 22, 2021, 3:40pm

Hi @Scotty

I have since discovered that there is actually a way to do this. No fancy tick boxes, so it will take a few minutes of your time to setup.

First thing you need is the actual name of the folder on the server. To get that, right-click on the folder in eM Client and choose Properties. Copy the full folder name from the server location field.

Now go to Menu > Accounts and click on the Diagnostics tab for this email account.

In the Advanced Options field, we are going to add a parameter:

--imap-list-ignore-path "full folder path"

The folder name is case sensitive, so be aware of that.

It will look like this:

Now to finish up, click on Save & Close.

If you want to unsubscribe from more than one folder, you can do that as well. Just use something like this:

These parameters can be repeated as many times as you want but there must always be a pair:
--parameter "pattern" --parameter "pattern" --parameter "pattern"

Use a space to separate them.

There are also some other options:

--imap-list-ignore-path-starts-with "beginning of folder paths case sensitive"

--imap-list-ignore-path-regex "arbitrary regex pattern"

Robert_Mingee · November 5, 2021, 9:17pm

I’m not sure if the version of the IMAP server matters or not, but for whatever reason, this is not working for me. I have tried specific folders, the “starts-with”, and the regex, and I get no warnings, but I can tell from watching the operations that it is still checking those folders.