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+Network Working Group B. Leiba
+Request for Comments: 2683 IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
+Category: Informational September 1999
+
+
+ IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations
+
+Status of this Memo
+
+ This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
+ not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
+ memo is unlimited.
+
+Copyright Notice
+
+ Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved.
+
+1. Abstract
+
+ The IMAP4 specification [RFC-2060] describes a rich protocol for use
+ in building clients and servers for storage, retrieval, and
+ manipulation of electronic mail. Because the protocol is so rich and
+ has so many implementation choices, there are often trade-offs that
+ must be made and issues that must be considered when designing such
+ clients and servers. This document attempts to outline these issues
+ and to make recommendations in order to make the end products as
+ interoperable as possible.
+
+2. Conventions used in this document
+
+ In examples, "C:" indicates lines sent by a client that is connected
+ to a server. "S:" indicates lines sent by the server to the client.
+
+ The words "must", "must not", "should", "should not", and "may" are
+ used with specific meaning in this document; since their meaning is
+ somewhat different from that specified in RFC 2119, we do not put
+ them in all caps here. Their meaning is as follows:
+
+ must -- This word means that the action described is necessary
+ to ensure interoperability. The recommendation should
+ not be ignored.
+ must not -- This phrase means that the action described will be
+ almost certain to hurt interoperability. The
+ recommendation should not be ignored.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 1]
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+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ should -- This word means that the action described is strongly
+ recommended and will enhance interoperability or
+ usability. The recommendation should not be ignored
+ without careful consideration.
+ should not -- This phrase means that the action described is strongly
+ recommended against, and might hurt interoperability or
+ usability. The recommendation should not be ignored
+ without careful consideration.
+ may -- This word means that the action described is an
+ acceptable implementation choice. No specific
+ recommendation is implied; this word is used to point
+ out a choice that might not be obvious, or to let
+ implementors know what choices have been made by
+ existing implementations.
+
+3. Interoperability Issues and Recommendations
+
+3.1. Accessibility
+
+ This section describes the issues related to access to servers and
+ server resources. Concerns here include data sharing and maintenance
+ of client/server connections.
+
+3.1.1. Multiple Accesses of the Same Mailbox
+
+ One strong point of IMAP4 is that, unlike POP3, it allows for
+ multiple simultaneous access to a single mailbox. A user can, thus,
+ read mail from a client at home while the client in the office is
+ still connected; or the help desk staff can all work out of the same
+ inbox, all seeing the same pool of questions. An important point
+ about this capability, though is that NO SERVER IS GUARANTEED TO
+ SUPPORT THIS. If you are selecting an IMAP server and this facility
+ is important to you, be sure that the server you choose to install,
+ in the configuration you choose to use, supports it.
+
+ If you are designing a client, you must not assume that you can
+ access the same mailbox more than once at a time. That means
+
+ 1. you must handle gracefully the failure of a SELECT command if the
+ server refuses the second SELECT,
+ 2. you must handle reasonably the severing of your connection (see
+ "Severed Connections", below) if the server chooses to allow the
+ second SELECT by forcing the first off,
+ 3. you must avoid making multiple connections to the same mailbox in
+ your own client (for load balancing or other such reasons), and
+ 4. you must avoid using the STATUS command on a mailbox that you have
+ selected (with some server implementations the STATUS command has
+ the same problems with multiple access as do the SELECT and
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 2]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ EXAMINE commands).
+
+ A further note about STATUS: The STATUS command is sometimes used to
+ check a non-selected mailbox for new mail. This mechanism must not
+ be used to check for new mail in the selected mailbox; section 5.2 of
+ [RFC-2060] specifically forbids this in its last paragraph. Further,
+ since STATUS takes a mailbox name it is an independent operation, not
+ operating on the selected mailbox. Because of this, the information
+ it returns is not necessarily in synchronization with the selected
+ mailbox state.
+
+3.1.2. Severed Connections
+
+ The client/server connection may be severed for one of three reasons:
+ the client severs the connection, the server severs the connection,
+ or the connection is severed by outside forces beyond the control of
+ the client and the server (a telephone line drops, for example).
+ Clients and servers must both deal with these situations.
+
+ When the client wants to sever a connection, it's usually because it
+ has finished the work it needed to do on that connection. The client
+ should send a LOGOUT command, wait for the tagged response, and then
+ close the socket. But note that, while this is what's intended in
+ the protocol design, there isn't universal agreement here. Some
+ contend that sending the LOGOUT and waiting for the two responses
+ (untagged BYE and tagged OK) is wasteful and unnecessary, and that
+ the client can simply close the socket. The server should interpret
+ the closed socket as a log out by the client. The counterargument is
+ that it's useful from the standpoint of cleanup, problem
+ determination, and the like, to have an explicit client log out,
+ because otherwise there is no way for the server to tell the
+ difference between "closed socket because of log out" and "closed
+ socket because communication was disrupted". If there is a
+ client/server interaction problem, a client which routinely
+ terminates a session by breaking the connection without a LOGOUT will
+ make it much more difficult to determine the problem.
+
+ Because of this disagreement, server designers must be aware that
+ some clients might close the socket without sending a LOGOUT. In any
+ case, whether or not a LOGOUT was sent, the server should not
+ implicitly expunge any messages from the selected mailbox. If a
+ client wants the server to do so, it must send a CLOSE or EXPUNGE
+ command explicitly.
+
+ When the server wants to sever a connection it's usually due to an
+ inactivity timeout or is because a situation has arisen that has
+ changed the state of the mail store in a way that the server can not
+ communicate to the client. The server should send an untagged BYE
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 3]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ response to the client and then close the socket. Sending an
+ untagged BYE response before severing allows the server to send a
+ human-readable explanation of the problem to the client, which the
+ client may then log, display to the user, or both (see section 7.1.5
+ of [RFC-2060]).
+
+ Regarding inactivity timeouts, there is some controversy. Unlike
+ POP, for which the design is for a client to connect, retrieve mail,
+ and log out, IMAP's design encourages long-lived (and mostly
+ inactive) client/server sessions. As the number of users grows, this
+ can use up a lot of server resources, especially with clients that
+ are designed to maintain sessions for mailboxes that the user has
+ finished accessing. To alleviate this, a server may implement an
+ inactivity timeout, unilaterally closing a session (after first
+ sending an untagged BYE, as noted above). Some server operators have
+ reported dramatic improvements in server performance after doing
+ this. As specified in [RFC-2060], if such a timeout is done it must
+ not be until at least 30 minutes of inactivity. The reason for this
+ specification is to prevent clients from sending commands (such as
+ NOOP) to the server at frequent intervals simply to avert a too-early
+ timeout. If the client knows that the server may not time out the
+ session for at least 30 minutes, then the client need not poll at
+ intervals more frequent than, say, 25 minutes.
+
+3.2. Scaling
+
+ IMAP4 has many features that allow for scalability, as mail stores
+ become larger and more numerous. Large numbers of users, mailboxes,
+ and messages, and very large messages require thought to handle
+ efficiently. This document will not address the administrative
+ issues involved in large numbers of users, but we will look at the
+ other items.
+
+3.2.1. Flood Control
+
+ There are three situations when a client can make a request that will
+ result in a very large response - too large for the client reasonably
+ to deal with: there are a great many mailboxes available, there are a
+ great many messages in the selected mailbox, or there is a very large
+ message part. The danger here is that the end user will be stuck
+ waiting while the server sends (and the client processes) an enormous
+ response. In all of these cases there are things a client can do to
+ reduce that danger.
+
+ There is also the case where a client can flood a server, by sending
+ an arbitratily long command. We'll discuss that issue, too, in this
+ section.
+
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 4]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+3.2.1.1. Listing Mailboxes
+
+ Some servers present Usenet newsgroups to IMAP users. Newsgroups,
+ and other such hierarchical mailbox structures, can be very numerous
+ but may have only a few entries at the top level of hierarchy. Also,
+ some servers are built against mail stores that can, unbeknownst to
+ the server, have circular hierarchies - that is, it's possible for
+ "a/b/c/d" to resolve to the same file structure as "a", which would
+ then mean that "a/b/c/d/b" is the same as "a/b", and the hierarchy
+ will never end. The LIST response in this case will be unlimited.
+
+ Clients that will have trouble with this are those that use
+
+ C: 001 LIST "" *
+
+ to determine the mailbox list. Because of this, clients should not
+ use an unqualified "*" that way in the LIST command. A safer
+ approach is to list each level of hierarchy individually, allowing
+ the user to traverse the tree one limb at a time, thus:
+
+ C: 001 LIST "" %
+ S: * LIST () "/" Banana
+ S: * LIST ...etc...
+ S: 001 OK done
+
+ and then
+
+ C: 002 LIST "" Banana/%
+ S: * LIST () "/" Banana/Apple
+ S: * LIST ...etc...
+ S: 002 OK done
+
+ Using this technique the client's user interface can give the user
+ full flexibility without choking on the voluminous reply to "LIST *".
+
+ Of course, it is still possible that the reply to
+
+ C: 005 LIST "" alt.fan.celebrity.%
+
+ may be thousands of entries long, and there is, unfortunately,
+ nothing the client can do to protect itself from that. This has not
+ yet been a notable problem.
+
+ Servers that may export circular hierarchies (any server that
+ directly presents a UNIX file system, for instance) should limit the
+ hierarchy depth to prevent unlimited LIST responses. A suggested
+ depth limit is 20 hierarchy levels.
+
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 5]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+3.2.1.2. Fetching the List of Messages
+
+ When a client selects a mailbox, it is given a count, in the untagged
+ EXISTS response, of the messages in the mailbox. This number can be
+ very large. In such a case it might be unwise to use
+
+ C: 004 FETCH 1:* ALL
+
+ to populate the user's view of the mailbox. One good method to avoid
+ problems with this is to batch the requests, thus:
+
+ C: 004 FETCH 1:50 ALL
+ S: * 1 FETCH ...etc...
+ S: 004 OK done
+ C: 005 FETCH 51:100 ALL
+ S: * 51 FETCH ...etc...
+ S: 005 OK done
+ C: 006 FETCH 101:150 ALL
+ ...etc...
+
+ Using this method, another command, such as "FETCH 6 BODY[1]" can be
+ inserted as necessary, and the client will not have its access to the
+ server blocked by a storm of FETCH replies. (Such a method could be
+ reversed to fetch the LAST 50 messages first, then the 50 prior to
+ that, and so on.)
+
+ As a smart extension of this, a well designed client, prepared for
+ very large mailboxes, will not automatically fetch data for all
+ messages AT ALL. Rather, the client will populate the user's view
+ only as the user sees it, possibly pre-fetching selected information,
+ and only fetching other information as the user scrolls to it. For
+ example, to select only those messages beginning with the first
+ unseen one:
+
+ C: 003 SELECT INBOX
+ S: * 10000 EXISTS
+ S: * 80 RECENT
+ S: * FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Draft \Seen)
+ S: * OK [UIDVALIDITY 824708485] UID validity status
+ S: * OK [UNSEEN 9921] First unseen message
+ S: 003 OK [READ-WRITE] SELECT completed
+ C: 004 FETCH 9921:* ALL
+ ... etc...
+
+ If the server does not return an OK [UNSEEN] response, the client may
+ use SEARCH UNSEEN to obtain that value.
+
+
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 6]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ This mechanism is good as a default presentation method, but only
+ works well if the default message order is acceptable. A client may
+ want to present various sort orders to the user (by subject, by date
+ sent, by sender, and so on) and in that case (lacking a SORT
+ extension on the server side) the client WILL have to retrieve all
+ message descriptors. A client that provides this service should not
+ do it by default and should inform the user of the costs of choosing
+ this option for large mailboxes.
+
+3.2.1.3. Fetching a Large Body Part
+
+ The issue here is similar to the one for a list of messages. In the
+ BODYSTRUCTURE response the client knows the size, in bytes, of the
+ body part it plans to fetch. Suppose this is a 70 MB video clip. The
+ client can use partial fetches to retrieve the body part in pieces,
+ avoiding the problem of an uninterruptible 70 MB literal coming back
+ from the server:
+
+ C: 022 FETCH 3 BODY[1]<0.20000>
+ S: * 3 FETCH (FLAGS(\Seen) BODY[1]<0> {20000}
+ S: ...data...)
+ S: 022 OK done
+ C: 023 FETCH 3 BODY[1]<20001.20000>
+ S: * 3 FETCH (BODY[1]<20001> {20000}
+ S: ...data...)
+ S: 023 OK done
+ C: 024 FETCH 3 BODY[1]<40001.20000>
+ ...etc...
+
+3.2.1.4. BODYSTRUCTURE vs. Entire Messages
+
+ Because FETCH BODYSTRUCTURE is necessary in order to determine the
+ number of body parts, and, thus, whether a message has "attachments",
+ clients often use FETCH FULL as their normal method of populating the
+ user's view of a mailbox. The benefit is that the client can display
+ a paperclip icon or some such indication along with the normal
+ message summary. However, this comes at a significant cost with some
+ server configurations. The parsing needed to generate the FETCH
+ BODYSTRUCTURE response may be time-consuming compared with that
+ needed for FETCH ENVELOPE. The client developer should consider this
+ issue when deciding whether the ability to add a paperclip icon is
+ worth the tradeoff in performance, especially with large mailboxes.
+
+ Some clients, rather than using FETCH BODYSTRUCTURE, use FETCH BODY[]
+ (or the equivalent FETCH RFC822) to retrieve the entire message.
+ They then do the MIME parsing in the client. This may give the
+ client slightly more flexibility in some areas (access, for instance,
+ to header fields that aren't returned in the BODYSTRUCTURE and
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 7]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ ENVELOPE responses), but it can cause severe performance problems by
+ forcing the transfer of all body parts when the user might only want
+ to see some of them - a user logged on by modem and reading a small
+ text message with a large ZIP file attached may prefer to read the
+ text only and save the ZIP file for later. Therefore, a client
+ should not normally retrieve entire messages and should retrieve
+ message body parts selectively.
+
+3.2.1.5. Long Command Lines
+
+ A client can wind up building a very long command line in an effort to
+ try to be efficient about requesting information from a server. This
+ can typically happen when a client builds a message set from selected
+ messages and doesn't recognise that contiguous blocks of messages may
+ be group in a range. Suppose a user selects all 10,000 messages in a
+ large mailbox and then unselects message 287. The client could build
+ that message set as "1:286,288:10000", but a client that doesn't
+ handle that might try to enumerate each message individually and build
+ "1,2,3,4, [and so on] ,9999,10000". Adding that to the fetch command
+ results in a command line that's almost 49,000 octets long, and,
+ clearly, one can construct a command line that's even longer.
+
+ A client should limit the length of the command lines it generates to
+ approximately 1000 octets (including all quoted strings but not
+ including literals). If the client is unable to group things into
+ ranges so that the command line is within that length, it should
+ split the request into multiple commands. The client should use
+ literals instead of long quoted strings, in order to keep the command
+ length down.
+
+ For its part, a server should allow for a command line of at least
+ 8000 octets. This provides plenty of leeway for accepting reasonable
+ length commands from clients. The server should send a BAD response
+ to a command that does not end within the server's maximum accepted
+ command length.
+
+3.2.2. Subscriptions
+
+ The client isn't the only entity that can get flooded: the end user,
+ too, may need some flood control. The IMAP4 protocol provides such
+ control in the form of subscriptions. Most servers support the
+ SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, and LSUB commands, and many users choose to
+ narrow down a large list of available mailboxes by subscribing to the
+ ones that they usually want to see. Clients, with this in mind,
+ should give the user a way to see only subscribed mailboxes. A
+ client that never uses the LSUB command takes a significant usability
+ feature away from the user. Of course, the client would not want to
+ hide the LIST command completely; the user needs to have a way to
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 8]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ choose between LIST and LSUB. The usual way to do this is to provide
+ a setting like "show which mailboxes?: [] all [] subscribed only".
+
+3.2.3. Searching
+
+ IMAP SEARCH commands can become particularly troublesome (that is,
+ slow) on mailboxes containing a large number of messages. So let's
+ put a few things in perspective in that regard.
+
+ The flag searches should be fast. The flag searches (ALL, [UN]SEEN,
+ [UN]ANSWERED, [UN]DELETED, [UN]DRAFT, [UN]FLAGGED, NEW, OLD, RECENT)
+ are known to be used by clients for the client's own use (for
+ instance, some clients use "SEARCH UNSEEN" to find unseen mail and
+ "SEARCH DELETED" to warn the user before expunging messages).
+
+ Other searches, particularly the text searches (HEADER, TEXT, BODY)
+ are initiated by the user, rather than by the client itself, and
+ somewhat slower performance can be tolerated, since the user is aware
+ that the search is being done (and is probably aware that it might be
+ time-consuming). A smart server might use dynamic indexing to speed
+ commonly used text searches.
+
+ The client may allow other commands to be sent to the server while a
+ SEARCH is in progress, but at the time of this writing there is
+ little or no server support for parallel processing of multiple
+ commands in the same session (and see "Multiple Accesses of the Same
+ Mailbox" above for a description of the dangers of trying to work
+ around this by doing your SEARCH in another session).
+
+ Another word about text searches: some servers, built on database
+ back-ends with indexed search capabilities, may return search results
+ that do not match the IMAP spec's "case-insensitive substring"
+ requirements. While these servers are in violation of the protocol,
+ there is little harm in the violation as long as the search results
+ are used only in response to a user's request. Still, developers of
+ such servers should be aware that they ARE violating the protocol,
+ should think carefully about that behaviour, and must be certain that
+ their servers respond accurately to the flag searches for the reasons
+ outlined above.
+
+ In addition, servers should support CHARSET UTF-8 [UTF-8] in
+ searches.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 9]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+3.3 Avoiding Invalid Requests
+
+ IMAP4 provides ways for a server to tell a client in advance what is
+ and isn't permitted in some circumstances. Clients should use these
+ features to avoid sending requests that a well designed client would
+ know to be invalid. This section explains this in more detail.
+
+3.3.1. The CAPABILITY Command
+
+ All IMAP4 clients should use the CAPABILITY command to determine what
+ version of IMAP and what optional features a server supports. The
+ client should not send IMAP4rev1 commands and arguments to a server
+ that does not advertize IMAP4rev1 in its CAPABILITY response.
+ Similarly, the client should not send IMAP4 commands that no longer
+ exist in IMAP4rev1 to a server that does not advertize IMAP4 in its
+ CAPABILITY response. An IMAP4rev1 server is NOT required to support
+ obsolete IMAP4 or IMAP2bis commands (though some do; do not let this
+ fact lull you into thinking that it's valid to send such commands to
+ an IMAP4rev1 server).
+
+ A client should not send commands to probe for the existance of
+ certain extensions. All standard and standards-track extensions
+ include CAPABILITY tokens indicating their presense. All private and
+ experimental extensions should do the same, and clients that take
+ advantage of them should use the CAPABILITY response to determine
+ whether they may be used or not.
+
+3.3.2. Don't Do What the Server Says You Can't
+
+ In many cases, the server, in response to a command, will tell the
+ client something about what can and can't be done with a particular
+ mailbox. The client should pay attention to this information and
+ should not try to do things that it's been told it can't do.
+
+ Examples:
+
+ * Do not try to SELECT a mailbox that has the \Noselect flag set.
+ * Do not try to CREATE a sub-mailbox in a mailbox that has the
+ \Noinferiors flag set.
+ * Do not respond to a failing COPY or APPEND command by trying to
+ CREATE the target mailbox if the server does not respond with a
+ [TRYCREATE] response code.
+ * Do not try to expunge a mailbox that has been selected with the
+ [READ-ONLY] response code.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 10]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+3.4. Miscellaneous Protocol Considerations
+
+ We describe here a number of important protocol-related issues, the
+ misunderstanding of which has caused significant interoperability
+ problems in IMAP4 implementations. One general item is that every
+ implementer should be certain to take note of and to understand
+ section 2.2.2 and the preamble to section 7 of the IMAP4rev1 spec
+ [RFC-2060].
+
+3.4.1. Well Formed Protocol
+
+ We cannot stress enough the importance of adhering strictly to the
+ protocol grammar. The specification of the protocol is quite rigid;
+ do not assume that you can insert blank space for "readability" if
+ none is called for. Keep in mind that there are parsers out there
+ that will crash if there are protocol errors. There are clients that
+ will report every parser burp to the user. And in any case,
+ information that cannot be parsed is information that is lost. Be
+ careful in your protocol generation. And see "A Word About Testing",
+ below.
+
+ In particular, note that the string in the INTERNALDATE response is
+ NOT an RFC-822 date string - that is, it is not in the same format as
+ the first string in the ENVELOPE response. Since most clients will,
+ in fact, accept an RFC-822 date string in the INTERNALDATE response,
+ it's easy to miss this in your interoperability testing. But it will
+ cause a problem with some client, so be sure to generate the correct
+ string for this field.
+
+3.4.2. Special Characters
+
+ Certain characters, currently the double-quote and the backslash, may
+ not be sent as-is inside a quoted string. These characters must be
+ preceded by the escape character if they are in a quoted string, or
+ else the string must be sent as a literal. Both clients and servers
+ must handle this, both on output (they must send these characters
+ properly) and on input (they must be able to receive escaped
+ characters in quoted strings). Example:
+
+ C: 001 LIST "" %
+ S: * LIST () "" INBOX
+ S: * LIST () "\\" TEST
+ S: * LIST () "\\" {12}
+ S: "My" mailbox
+ S: 001 OK done
+ C: 002 LIST "" "\"My\" mailbox\\%"
+ S: * LIST () "\\" {17}
+ S: "My" mailbox\Junk
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 11]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ S: 002 OK done
+
+ Note that in the example the server sent the hierarchy delimiter as
+ an escaped character in the quoted string and sent the mailbox name
+ containing imbedded double-quotes as a literal. The client used only
+ quoted strings, escaping both the backslash and the double-quote
+ characters.
+
+ The CR and LF characters may be sent ONLY in literals; they are not
+ allowed, even if escaped, inside quoted strings.
+
+ And while we're talking about special characters: the IMAP spec, in
+ the section titled "Mailbox International Naming Convention",
+ describes how to encode mailbox names in modified UTF-7 [UTF-7 and
+ RFC-2060]. Implementations must adhere to this in order to be
+ interoperable in the international market, and servers should
+ validate mailbox names sent by client and reject names that do not
+ conform.
+
+ As to special characters in userids and passwords: clients must not
+ restrict what a user may type in for a userid or a password. The
+ formal grammar specifies that these are "astrings", and an astring
+ can be a literal. A literal, in turn can contain any 8-bit
+ character, and clients must allow users to enter all 8-bit characters
+ here, and must pass them, unchanged, to the server (being careful to
+ send them as literals when necessary). In particular, some server
+ configurations use "@" in user names, and some clients do not allow
+ that character to be entered; this creates a severe interoperability
+ problem.
+
+3.4.3. UIDs and UIDVALIDITY
+
+ Servers that support existing back-end mail stores often have no good
+ place to save UIDs for messages. Often the existing mail store will
+ not have the concept of UIDs in the sense that IMAP has: strictly
+ increasing, never re-issued, 32-bit integers. Some servers solve
+ this by storing the UIDs in a place that's accessible to end users,
+ allowing for the possibility that the users will delete them. Others
+ solve it by re-assigning UIDs every time a mailbox is selected.
+
+ The server should maintain UIDs permanently for all messages if it
+ can. If that's not possible, the server must change the UIDVALIDITY
+ value for the mailbox whenever any of the UIDs may have become
+ invalid. Clients must recognize that the UIDVALIDITY has changed and
+ must respond to that condition by throwing away any information that
+ they have saved about UIDs in that mailbox. There have been many
+ problems in this area when clients have failed to do this; in the
+ worst case it will result in loss of mail when a client deletes the
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 12]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ wrong piece of mail by using a stale UID.
+
+ It seems to be a common misunderstanding that "the UIDVALIDITY and
+ the UID, taken together, form a 64-bit identifier that uniquely
+ identifies a message on a server". This is absolutely NOT TRUE.
+ There is no assurance that the UIDVALIDITY values of two mailboxes be
+ different, so the UIDVALIDITY in no way identifies a mailbox. The
+ ONLY purpose of UIDVALIDITY is, as its name indicates, to give the
+ client a way to check the validity of the UIDs it has cached. While
+ it is a valid implementation choice to put these values together to
+ make a 64-bit identifier for the message, the important concept here
+ is that UIDs are not unique between mailboxes; they are only unique
+ WITHIN a given mailbox.
+
+ Some server implementations have attempted to make UIDs unique across
+ the entire server. This is inadvisable, in that it limits the life
+ of UIDs unnecessarily. The UID is a 32-bit number and will run out
+ in reasonably finite time if it's global across the server. If you
+ assign UIDs sequentially in one mailbox, you will not have to start
+ re-using them until you have had, at one time or another, 2**32
+ different messages in that mailbox. In the global case, you will
+ have to reuse them once you have had, at one time or another, 2**32
+ different messages in the entire mail store. Suppose your server has
+ around 8000 users registered (2**13). That gives an average of 2**19
+ UIDs per user. Suppose each user gets 32 messages (2**5) per day.
+ That gives you 2**14 days (16000+ days = about 45 years) before you
+ run out. That may seem like enough, but multiply the usage just a
+ little (a lot of spam, a lot of mailing list subscriptions, more
+ users) and you limit yourself too much.
+
+ What's worse is that if you have to wrap the UIDs, and, thus, you
+ have to change UIDVALIDITY and invalidate the UIDs in the mailbox,
+ you have to do it for EVERY mailbox in the system, since they all
+ share the same UID pool. If you assign UIDs per mailbox and you have
+ a problem, you only have to kill the UIDs for that one mailbox.
+
+ Under extreme circumstances (and this is extreme, indeed), the server
+ may have to invalidate UIDs while a mailbox is in use by a client -
+ that is, the UIDs that the client knows about in its active mailbox
+ are no longer valid. In that case, the server must immediately
+ change the UIDVALIDITY and must communicate this to the client. The
+ server may do this by sending an unsolicited UIDVALIDITY message, in
+ the same form as in response to the SELECT command. Clients must be
+ prepared to handle such a message and the possibly coincident failure
+ of the command in process. For example:
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 13]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ C: 032 UID STORE 382 +Flags.silent \Deleted
+ S: * OK [UIDVALIDITY 12345] New UIDVALIDITY value!
+ S: 032 NO UID command rejected because UIDVALIDITY changed!
+ C: ...invalidates local information and re-fetches...
+ C: 033 FETCH 1:* UID
+ ...etc...
+
+ At the time of the writing of this document, the only server known to
+ do this does so only under the following condition: the client
+ selects INBOX, but there is not yet a physical INBOX file created.
+ Nonetheless, the SELECT succeeds, exporting an empty INBOX with a
+ temporary UIDVALIDITY of 1. While the INBOX remains selected, mail
+ is delivered to the user, which creates the real INBOX file and
+ assigns a permanent UIDVALIDITY (that is likely not to be 1). The
+ server reports the change of UIDVALIDITY, but as there were no
+ messages before, so no UIDs have actually changed, all the client
+ must do is accept the change in UIDVALIDITY.
+
+ Alternatively, a server may force the client to re-select the
+ mailbox, at which time it will obtain a new UIDVALIDITY value. To do
+ this, the server closes this client session (see "Severed
+ Connections" above) and the client then reconnects and gets back in
+ synch. Clients must be prepared for either of these behaviours.
+
+ We do not know of, nor do we anticipate the future existance of, a
+ server that changes UIDVALIDITY while there are existing messages,
+ but clients must be prepared to handle this eventuality.
+
+3.4.4. FETCH Responses
+
+ When a client asks for certain information in a FETCH command, the
+ server may return the requested information in any order, not
+ necessarily in the order that it was requested. Further, the server
+ may return the information in separate FETCH responses and may also
+ return information that was not explicitly requested (to reflect to
+ the client changes in the state of the subject message). Some
+ examples:
+
+ C: 001 FETCH 1 UID FLAGS INTERNALDATE
+ S: * 5 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted))
+ S: * 1 FETCH (FLAGS (\Seen) INTERNALDATE "..." UID 345)
+ S: 001 OK done
+
+ (In this case, the responses are in a different order. Also, the
+ server returned a flag update for message 5, which wasn't part of the
+ client's request.)
+
+
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 14]
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+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ C: 002 FETCH 2 UID FLAGS INTERNALDATE
+ S: * 2 FETCH (INTERNALDATE "...")
+ S: * 2 FETCH (UID 399)
+ S: * 2 FETCH (FLAGS ())
+ S: 002 OK done
+
+ (In this case, the responses are in a different order and were
+ returned in separate responses.)
+
+ C: 003 FETCH 2 BODY[1]
+ S: * 2 FETCH (FLAGS (\Seen) BODY[1] {14}
+ S: Hello world!
+ S: )
+ S: 003 OK done
+
+ (In this case, the FLAGS response was added by the server, since
+ fetching the body part caused the server to set the \Seen flag.)
+
+ Because of this characteristic a client must be ready to receive any
+ FETCH response at any time and should use that information to update
+ its local information about the message to which the FETCH response
+ refers. A client must not assume that any FETCH responses will come
+ in any particular order, or even that any will come at all. If after
+ receiving the tagged response for a FETCH command the client finds
+ that it did not get all of the information requested, the client
+ should send a NOOP command to the server to ensure that the server
+ has an opportunity to send any pending EXPUNGE responses to the
+ client (see [RFC-2180]).
+
+3.4.5. RFC822.SIZE
+
+ Some back-end mail stores keep the mail in a canonical form, rather
+ than retaining the original MIME format of the messages. This means
+ that the server must reassemble the message to produce a MIME stream
+ when a client does a fetch such as RFC822 or BODY[], requesting the
+ entire message. It also may mean that the server has no convenient
+ way to know the RFC822.SIZE of the message. Often, such a server
+ will actually have to build the MIME stream to compute the size, only
+ to throw the stream away and report the size to the client.
+
+ When this is the case, some servers have chosen to estimate the size,
+ rather than to compute it precisely. Such an estimate allows the
+ client to display an approximate size to the user and to use the
+ estimate in flood control considerations (q.v.), but requires that
+ the client not use the size for things such as allocation of buffers,
+ because those buffers might then be too small to hold the actual MIME
+ stream. Instead, a client should use the size that's returned in the
+ literal when you fetch the data.
+
+
+
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+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ The protocol requires that the RFC822.SIZE value returned by the
+ server be EXACT. Estimating the size is a protocol violation, and
+ server designers must be aware that, despite the performance savings
+ they might realize in using an estimate, this practice will cause
+ some clients to fail in various ways. If possible, the server should
+ compute the RFC822.SIZE for a particular message once, and then save
+ it for later retrieval. If that's not possible, the server must
+ compute the value exactly every time. Incorrect estimates do cause
+ severe interoperability problems with some clients.
+
+3.4.6. Expunged Messages
+
+ If the server allows multiple connections to the same mailbox, it is
+ often possible for messages to be expunged in one client unbeknownst
+ to another client. Since the server is not allowed to tell the
+ client about these expunged messages in response to a FETCH command,
+ the server may have to deal with the issue of how to return
+ information about an expunged message. There was extensive
+ discussion about this issue, and the results of that discussion are
+ summarized in [RFC-2180]. See that reference for a detailed
+ explanation and for recommendations.
+
+3.4.7. The Namespace Issue
+
+ Namespaces are a very muddy area in IMAP4 implementation right now
+ (see [NAMESPACE] for a proposal to clear the water a bit). Until the
+ issue is resolved, the important thing for client developers to
+ understand is that some servers provide access through IMAP to more
+ than just the user's personal mailboxes, and, in fact, the user's
+ personal mailboxes may be "hidden" somewhere in the user's default
+ hierarchy. The client, therefore, should provide a setting wherein
+ the user can specify a prefix to be used when accessing mailboxes. If
+ the user's mailboxes are all in "~/mail/", for instance, then the
+ user can put that string in the prefix. The client would then put
+ the prefix in front of any name pattern in the LIST and LSUB
+ commands:
+
+ C: 001 LIST "" ~/mail/%
+
+ (See also "Reference Names in the LIST Command" below.)
+
+3.4.8. Creating Special-Use Mailboxes
+
+ It may seem at first that this is part of the namespace issue; it is
+ not, and is only indirectly related to it. A number of clients like
+ to create special-use mailboxes with particular names. Most
+ commonly, clients with a "trash folder" model of message deletion
+ want to create a mailbox with the name "Trash" or "Deleted". Some
+
+
+
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+
+
+ clients want to create a "Drafts" mailbox, an "Outbox" mailbox, or a
+ "Sent Mail" mailbox. And so on. There are two major
+ interoperability problems with this practice:
+
+ 1. different clients may use different names for mailboxes with
+ similar functions (such as "Trash" and "Deleted"), or may manage
+ the same mailboxes in different ways, causing problems if a user
+ switches between clients and
+ 2. there is no guarantee that the server will allow the creation of
+ the desired mailbox.
+
+ The client developer is, therefore, well advised to consider
+ carefully the creation of any special-use mailboxes on the server,
+ and, further, the client must not require such mailbox creation -
+ that is, if you do decide to do this, you must handle gracefully the
+ failure of the CREATE command and behave reasonably when your
+ special-use mailboxes do not exist and can not be created.
+
+ In addition, the client developer should provide a convenient way for
+ the user to select the names for any special-use mailboxes, allowing
+ the user to make these names the same in all clients used and to put
+ them where the user wants them.
+
+3.4.9. Reference Names in the LIST Command
+
+ Many implementers of both clients and servers are confused by the
+ "reference name" on the LIST command. The reference name is intended
+ to be used in much the way a "cd" (change directory) command is used
+ on Unix, PC DOS, Windows, and OS/2 systems. That is, the mailbox
+ name is interpreted in much the same way as a file of that name would
+ be found if one had done a "cd" command into the directory specified
+ by the reference name. For example, in Unix we have the following:
+
+ > cd /u/jones/junk
+ > vi banana [file is "/u/jones/junk/banana"]
+ > vi stuff/banana [file is "/u/jones/junk/stuff/banana"]
+ > vi /etc/hosts [file is "/etc/hosts"]
+
+ In the past, there have been several interoperability problems with
+ this. First, while some IMAP servers are built on Unix or PC file
+ systems, many others are not, and the file system semantics do not
+ make sense in those configurations. Second, while some IMAP servers
+ expose the underlying file system to the clients, others allow access
+ only to the user's personal mailboxes, or to some other limited set
+ of files, making such file-system-like semantics less meaningful.
+ Third, because the IMAP spec leaves the interpretation of the
+ reference name as "implementation-dependent", in the past the various
+ server implementations handled it in vastly differing ways.
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 17]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ The following recommendations are the result of significant
+ operational experience, and are intended to maximize
+ interoperability.
+
+ Server implementations must implement the reference argument in a way
+ that matches the intended "change directory" operation as closely as
+ possible. As a minimum implementation, the reference argument may be
+ prepended to the mailbox name (while suppressing double delimiters;
+ see the next paragraph). Even servers that do not provide a way to
+ break out of the current hierarchy (see "breakout facility" below)
+ must provide a reasonable implementation of the reference argument,
+ as described here, so that they will interoperate with clients that
+ use it.
+
+ Server implementations that prepend the reference argument to the
+ mailbox name should insert a hierarchy delimiter between them, and
+ must not insert a second if one is already present:
+
+ C: A001 LIST ABC DEF
+ S: * LIST () "/" ABC/DEF <=== should do this
+ S: A001 OK done
+
+ C: A002 LIST ABC/ /DEF
+ S: * LIST () "/" ABC//DEF <=== must not do this
+ S: A002 OK done
+
+ On clients, the reference argument is chiefly used to implement a
+ "breakout facility", wherein the user may directly access a mailbox
+ outside the "current directory" hierarchy. Client implementations
+ should have an operational mode that does not use the reference
+ argument. This is to interoperate with older servers that did not
+ implement the reference argument properly. While it's a good idea to
+ give the user access to a breakout facility, clients that do not
+ intend to do so should not use the reference argument at all.
+
+ Client implementations should always place a trailing hierarchy
+ delimiter on the reference argument. This is because some servers
+ prepend the reference argument to the mailbox name without inserting
+ a hierarchy delimiter, while others do insert a hierarchy delimiter
+ if one is not already present. A client that puts the delimiter in
+ will work with both varieties of server.
+
+ Client implementations that implement a breakout facility should
+ allow the user to choose whether or not to use a leading hierarchy
+ delimiter on the mailbox argument. This is because the handling of a
+ leading mailbox hierarchy delimiter also varies from server to
+ server, and even between different mailstores on the same server. In
+ some cases, a leading hierarchy delimiter means "discard the
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 18]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ reference argument" (implementing the intended breakout facility),
+ thus:
+
+ C: A001 LIST ABC/ /DEF
+ S: * LIST () "/" /DEF
+ S: A001 OK done
+
+ In other cases, however, the two are catenated and the extra
+ hierarchy delimiter is discarded, thus:
+
+ C: A001 LIST ABC/ /DEF
+ S: * LIST () "/" ABC/DEF
+ S: A001 OK done
+
+ Client implementations must not assume that the server supports a
+ breakout facility, but may provide a way for the user to use one if
+ it is available. Any breakout facility should be exported to the
+ user interface. Note that there may be other "breakout" characters
+ besides the hierarchy delimiter (for instance, UNIX filesystem
+ servers are likely to use a leading "~" as well), and that their
+ interpretation is server-dependent.
+
+3.4.10. Mailbox Hierarchy Delimiters
+
+ The server's selection of what to use as a mailbox hierarchy
+ delimiter is a difficult one, involving several issues: What
+ characters do users expect to see? What characters can they enter
+ for a hierarchy delimiter if it is desired (or required) that the
+ user enter it? What character can be used for the hierarchy
+ delimiter, noting that the chosen character can not otherwise be used
+ in the mailbox name?
+
+ Because some interfaces show users the hierarchy delimiters or allow
+ users to enter qualified mailbox names containing them, server
+ implementations should use delimiter characters that users generally
+ expect to see as name separators. The most common characters used
+ for this are "/" (as in Unix file names), "\" (as in OS/2 and Windows
+ file names), and "." (as in news groups). There is little to choose
+ among these apart from what users may expect or what is dictated by
+ the underlying file system, if any. One consideration about using
+ "\" is that it's also a special character in the IMAP protocol. While
+ the use of other hierarchy delimiter characters is permissible, A
+ DESIGNER IS WELL ADVISED TO STAY WITH ONE FROM THIS SET unless the
+ server is intended for special purposes only. Implementers might be
+ thinking about using characters such as "-", "_", ";", "&", "#", "@",
+ and "!", but they should be aware of the surprise to the user as well
+ as of the effect on URLs and other external specifications (since
+ some of these characters have special meanings there). Also, a
+
+
+
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+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ server that uses "\" (and clients of such a server) must remember to
+ escape that character in quoted strings or to send literals instead.
+ Literals are recommended over escaped characters in quoted strings in
+ order to maintain compatibility with older IMAP versions that did not
+ allow escaped characters in quoted strings (but check the grammar to
+ see where literals are allowed):
+
+ C: 001 LIST "" {13}
+ S: + send literal
+ C: this\%\%\%\h*
+ S: * LIST () "\\" {27}
+ S: this\is\a\mailbox\hierarchy
+ S: 001 OK LIST complete
+
+ In any case, a server should not use normal alpha-numeric characters
+ (such as "X" or "0") as delimiters; a user would be very surprised to
+ find that "EXPENDITURES" actually represented a two-level hierarchy.
+ And a server should not use characters that are non-printable or
+ difficult or impossible to enter on a standard US keyboard. Control
+ characters, box-drawing characters, and characters from non-US
+ alphabets fit into this category. Their use presents
+ interoperability problems that are best avoided.
+
+ The UTF-7 encoding of mailbox names also raises questions about what
+ to do with the hierarchy delimiters in encoded names: do we encode
+ each hierarchy level and separate them with delimiters, or do we
+ encode the fully qualified name, delimiters and all? The answer for
+ IMAP is the former: encode each hierarchy level separately, and
+ insert delimiters between. This makes it particularly important not
+ to use as a hierarchy delimiter a character that might cause
+ confusion with IMAP's modified UTF-7 [UTF-7 and RFC-2060] encoding.
+
+ To repeat: a server should use "/", "\", or "." as its hierarchy
+ delimiter. The use of any other character is likely to cause
+ problems and is STRONGLY DISCOURAGED.
+
+3.4.11. ALERT Response Codes
+
+ The protocol spec is very clear on the matter of what to do with
+ ALERT response codes, and yet there are many clients that violate it
+ so it needs to be said anyway: "The human-readable text contains a
+ special alert that must be presented to the user in a fashion that
+ calls the user's attention to the message." That should be clear
+ enough, but I'll repeat it here: Clients must present ALERT text
+ clearly to the user.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 20]
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+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+3.4.12. Deleting Mailboxes
+
+ The protocol does not guarantee that a client may delete a mailbox
+ that is not empty, though on some servers it is permissible and is,
+ in fact, much faster than the alternative or deleting all the
+ messages from the client. If the client chooses to try to take
+ advantage of this possibility it must be prepared to use the other
+ method in the even that the more convenient one fails. Further, a
+ client should not try to delete the mailbox that it has selected, but
+ should first close that mailbox; some servers do not permit the
+ deletion of the selected mailbox.
+
+ That said, a server should permit the deletion of a non-empty
+ mailbox; there's little reason to pass this work on to the client.
+ Moreover, forbidding this prevents the deletion of a mailbox that for
+ some reason can not be opened or expunged, leading to possible
+ denial-of-service problems.
+
+ Example:
+
+ [User tells the client to delete mailbox BANANA, which is
+ currently selected...]
+ C: 008 CLOSE
+ S: 008 OK done
+ C: 009 DELETE BANANA
+ S: 009 NO Delete failed; mailbox is not empty.
+ C: 010 SELECT BANANA
+ S: * ... untagged SELECT responses
+ S: 010 OK done
+ C: 011 STORE 1:* +FLAGS.SILENT \DELETED
+ S: 011 OK done
+ C: 012 CLOSE
+ S: 012 OK done
+ C: 013 DELETE BANANA
+ S: 013 OK done
+
+3.5. A Word About Testing
+
+ Since the whole point of IMAP is interoperability, and since
+ interoperability can not be tested in a vacuum, the final
+ recommendation of this treatise is, "Test against EVERYTHING." Test
+ your client against every server you can get an account on. Test
+ your server with every client you can get your hands on. Many
+ clients make limited test versions available on the Web for the
+ downloading. Many server owners will give serious client developers
+ guest accounts for testing. Contact them and ask. NEVER assume that
+ because your client works with one or two servers, or because your
+ server does fine with one or two clients, you will interoperate well
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 21]
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+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+ in general.
+
+ In particular, in addition to everything else, be sure to test
+ against the reference implementations: the PINE client, the
+ University of Washington server, and the Cyrus server.
+
+ See the following URLs on the web for more information here:
+
+ IMAP Products and Sources: http://www.imap.org/products.html
+ IMC MailConnect: http://www.imc.org/imc-mailconnect
+
+4. Security Considerations
+
+ This document describes behaviour of clients and servers that use the
+ IMAP4 protocol, and as such, has the same security considerations as
+ described in [RFC-2060].
+
+5. References
+
+ [RFC-2060] Crispin, M., "Internet Message Access Protocol - Version
+ 4rev1", RFC 2060, December 1996.
+
+ [RFC-2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
+ Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
+
+ [RFC-2180] Gahrns, M., "IMAP4 Multi-Accessed Mailbox Practice", RFC
+ 2180, July 1997.
+
+ [UTF-8] Yergeau, F., " UTF-8, a transformation format of Unicode
+ and ISO 10646", RFC 2044, October 1996.
+
+ [UTF-7] Goldsmith, D. and M. Davis, "UTF-7, a Mail-Safe
+ Transformation Format of Unicode", RFC 2152, May 1997.
+
+ [NAMESPACE] Gahrns, M. and C. Newman, "IMAP4 Namespace", Work in
+ Progress.
+
+6. Author's Address
+
+ Barry Leiba
+ IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
+ 30 Saw Mill River Road
+ Hawthorne, NY 10532
+
+ Phone: 1-914-784-7941
+ EMail: leiba@watson.ibm.com
+
+
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 22]
+\f
+RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations September 1999
+
+
+7. Full Copyright Statement
+
+ Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved.
+
+ This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
+ others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
+ or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
+ and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
+ kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
+ included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
+ document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
+ the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
+ Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
+ developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
+ copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
+ followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
+ English.
+
+ The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
+ revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
+
+ This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
+ "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
+ TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
+ BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
+ HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
+ MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Acknowledgement
+
+ Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
+ Internet Society.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Leiba Informational [Page 23]
+\f
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