You (well, some of you who bothered to comment) advised me to get off POP and switch to IMAP for receiving my mail. Ever your faithful servant, I have attempted to do so. Here is my report.
I started out switching from POP to IMAP in Eudora, and creating a few IMAP folders. I then brought up Apple's Mail client on the same account. Subject to the many problems below, the basic functionality I wanted does work. All my mail shows up in both clients more or less automagically. However, even allowing for the fact I still haven't learned all the nuances, my impression that Eudora's IMAP functionality is weak appears to be amply borne out. I'm trying to transition off Eudora to Mail, but as you can see, there are some real problems and one or two showstoppers.
Eudora can't seem to create a folder inside the main IMAP folder. This is a showstopper for me. It just gives me a flat space. I can't tell if Eudora has some sneaky way of doing it or not. If it doesn't I'm going to have to do some incredibly laborious work to recreate the folder structure I want using a different client.
I created a new IMAP folder using the Mail client, but Eudora can't see it. Unlike Mail, Eudora doesn't seem to have an explicit "synchronize mailboxes" command. If it did, I'd expect it to find any new mailboxes which had been created. This makes freely switching back and forth between clients unworkable. For now, I'm still stuck in Eudora unless I can solve this problem and will continue to be in it until I'm ready to make a once-and-for-all switch. Not my preferred choice.
When I create a new IMAP folder in Eudora and synchronize it with the server, then run the Mail client, all of the messages (eventually) appear, but display as the date not the date the mail was originally received, but when the mail was copied into the IMAP folder (i.e., Today). This looks like a bug in Mail. Perhaps there is a workaround.
When I take mail I have previously created in Eudora, which resides in my local Out mailbox and transfer it to a new IMAP folder Sent, Eudora properly displays the mail with the name of the recipient in its summary view. When I view the same folder (well, actually the local copy) in the Mail client, it displays the name of the send, i.e., me. Somehow Mail doesn't understand we're talking about mail which I've composed. I don't know what the trick is here or if this is a bug.
Sometimes, we a large number of message are being transferred from a local folder to an IMAP folder, Eudora quits in the middle and doesn't notify the user.
Sometimes when a local folder with a lot of messages (hundreds) is being synchronized with the folder on the server, Eudora either stops synchronizing without notification or fails to display the activity in the Task Progress window. In other words, it looks like nothing is going on. Eventually, however, the operation completes. At least it always has so far.
In Eudora, if a large synchronization involving creation of new folders on the server is incomplete, and you try to use Eudora to do other things, you get an endless series of meaningless error messages about not being able to open mailboxes.
Neither Mail nor Eudora seems to have a way to set which folders get subscribed to from the server. If I had lots of folders on the server and I tried to bring up the client for the first time, I imagine this would be a problem.
Mail I compose in Eudora is stored locally in Out not in the IMAP Sent folder. Mail has an option to cause composed mail to be stored in Sent, which is what I want. Eudora appears to lack this feature. This means that mail I write is not automatically available from any IMAP client.
Posted by mitch@osafoundation.org at September 26, 2003 01:00 PM__When I create a new IMAP folder in Eudora and synchronize it with the server, then run the Mail client, all of the messages (eventually) appear, but display as the date not the date the mail was originally received, but when the mail was copied into the IMAP folder (i.e., Today). This looks like a bug in Mail. Perhaps there is a workaround.__
Yeah, that's a little annoying. I just turn on the "Date Sent" column, which is I think a little more relevant anyway...
For the Sent mail folder issue: Open the folders drawer, Ctrl-click on your Sent folder -> account settings -> "Use this mailbox for Sent".
Sounds like Eudora's pretty well broken. I just keep coming back to Mail.app. I really liked Thunderbird under Linux, but the integration with the OS under OS X is less than ideal.
Mail.app doesn't seem to grok the whole "subscribed folders" thing. To see new folders, just collapse and expand the account tree. Oh, and you've gotta have more than one account to really see your folders (see http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107069). Mail.app's pretty quick when you've got a lot of folders.
One major shortcoming (for me, anyway) with Mail.app is that it only checks the top-level folders (ie. INBOX) for new messages. I deliver mail to many folders on the IMAP server, and the only time Mail.app updates that message count is when you start it up for the first time.
Posted by: Brian at September 26, 2003 01:33 PM
Brian,
Thanks for the tips. I was able to resolve the Sent folder issue. I can't figure out how to turn on the "Date Sent" column. Can you help? Thanks.
Posted by: Mitch Kapor at September 26, 2003 03:43 PM
Mitch,
You might want to take a serious look at the Mozilla 1.4 mail client, as it has IMAP support, is cross platform and has a very good Bayesian spam filter. Sorry, not trying to muddy the waters here, but I would get off of Eudora.
Posted by: Colin Scroggins at September 26, 2003 03:58 PM
In Eudora you can create a mailbox inside the INBOX of an account. Go to the Window menu, select Mailboxes. Select the INBOX of the account you want to create a mailbox inside of. Then click on the button at the bottom that has a tray with a plus sign on it (the leftmost one). Your INBOX icon should morph from a tray to a tray with envelope and you should be able to click the triangle to its left and see a new untitled mailbox within it.
To explicitly update the IMAP mailbox list in Eudora open the Mailboxes window. Select the account for which you want to update the list of mailboxes then click on the little button at the bottom that has a tray with a wire coming out from the button (second from the right). Pretty obvious isn't it, no tooltips either.
IMAP has a concept of the into mailbox date, if this is not set explicitly it is the time that the message arrives in the mailbox, Eudora (and most other clients don't set this when moving messages so it ends up being the date of the copy. This is the Date that Mail uses by default, to use the Date Sent instead go to the View menu -> Columns and select Date Sent. This setting seems to be global in nature.
Eudora also does not have the concept of "subscribed folders" but as with Mail.app I don't think it updates the folders until you explicitly make it (open them or click the tray with opposing arrows button on the mailboxes window). It does sometimes update the fact that there are unread messages in a mailbox a bit more often than Mail.app, I wouldn't call it reliable though.
My experience with Eudora and adding lots of local messages to IMAP folders was that some messages just wouldn't go (probably they did not meet IMAP standards and the server was rejecting them, primarily a limit of 1000 characters a line) and Eudora couldn't handle this and would crash. I ended up transferring only a few hundred at a time. Or resorting to perl scripts or other hacks like dropping the Eudora .mbox files straight into my account on the server (after fixing the line endings).
It looks like you've sorted out the Sent folder stuff for Mail.app. To store Sent mail in Eudora in the Sent IMAP folder you need to create a Filtter in Eudora. From the Window menu select Filters, click New in the bottom left corner. Then set Match to Outgoing, Header to From:, appears in the popup below that and ignore in the popup below that. Select Transfer To as the action ( or Copy To if you'd like to leave a copy in the local Out box also) and select the Sent IMAP filder from the Mailbox menu. Close the filter window and save your changes. The outgoing filters take a couple of seconds to run after the mail has been sent.
I hope all this makes sense, let me know if it doesn't.
Posted by: Matthew at September 26, 2003 06:47 PM
I don't usually say such things but I think the concept of using folders to organise e-mails is on its way out.
With the release of Opera7 comes M2, Opera's mail client that does away with folders. Instead it uses access points. Your mails are stored at only one place but you can access it from a variety of locations associated with it. And it doesn’t mean setting up filters or moving your e-mails.
I just wrote about it yesterday. http://tinyurl.com/oury
As an idea, it’s truly revolutionary. Their product however can do with some improvements.
Posted by: Manu Sharma at September 27, 2003 08:38 AM
Mitch – You’ve peered into the precipice. The slippery slope starts here.
Yes, there are many partial and poor implementations of imap. Some were looking for the marketing checkmark, others where solving a specific problem for specific (well paying) client. (A factor I know all too well.)
Imap was designed to do three things very well (and which pop cannot do:)
1) Location/client independence (especially on a campus, where xterms rule)
2) slow link connections (view headers only, sync selected only…)
3) disconnected use, with folder sync (laptops, unreliable connections…)
Every imap clients has some strengths and weaknesses against these three objectives. The very best imap clients are ones like pine, with features so arcane you’d have to be an academic to love.
Apple Mail might be too simple for many business users, but they got the basics of imap right (specifically weighted to promote their .mac service.)
Eudora is well suited to email power users, but totally missed the html, imap, entry-level user explosion of the late 90’s.
Microsoft Outlook Express does a great job on most of the imap features (including selective folder subscriptions) as they “sucked all the oxygen out Mountain View.”
Pine nails the really odd imap features that black belt *nix user love with the ability to point to mail folders anywhere (like in the server side users profile directory.)
Please don’t let just one or two vendors variations be your only reference point. Making Chandler product/technology decisions based on your experiences with Eudor Mac would be a shame.
Also, put another client (or three) around to get a feel for other business Use Cases:
1) primary laptop (Mac OS X)
2) lunch room kiosk at office (Linux with KDE or Gnome – mimic the internet café users)
3) wifi handheld (palm or windows CE)
4) Family PC (the one running quicken)
Getting hook on imap is _easy_. Now figuring out how to keep your address book always available is the challenge...
Posted by: Daniel Klaussen at September 27, 2003 01:46 PM
One major shortcoming (for me, anyway) with Mail.app is that it only checks the top-level folders (ie. INBOX) for new messages. I deliver mail to many folders on the IMAP server, and the only time Mail.app updates that message count is when you start it up for the first time
Posted by: andry at July 1, 2004 03:12 PM