Apple Mail.app error with Dovecot IMAP (Debian 4.0 etch)
July 15, 2008 – 5:36 pmAs I think many users may have the same problem using Apple’s Mail App to connect their IMAP Mailboxes, I decided to share my experience. (now in english 
)
When I tried to create new Mailboxes/Folders in Dovecot IMAP (Debian etch 1.0.rc15-2etch4) I came along with the following error:
“Mailbox Creation Failed” – The IMAP command “CREATE” failed with server error: Unknown namespace…
Even my existing Folders did now longer exist – They were still in the .maildir, but not visually shown in Apple Mail.app.
I tried to change the IMAP Prefix in the preferences, but it still didn’t work.
My solution for this problem is, to install the most recent version of Dovecot IMAP using backports.org
First, uninstall all existing Dovecot Packages
Insert this to your /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://www.backports.org/debian etch-backports main contrib non-free
then install Version 1.0.13-1~bpo40+1 (this one worked fine)
apt-get update apt-get -t etch-backports install dovecot-imapd dovecot-pop3d
Now try again – Have fun
Update:
For those of you who need the part of my dovecot.conf, here you go:
namespace private {
separator = .
prefix = INBOX.
inbox = yes
}
6 Responses to “Apple Mail.app error with Dovecot IMAP (Debian 4.0 etch)”
Woo ! Thanks for the tip
By Philippe on Sep 14, 2008
Good job! I have the same problem but could solve it. May I ask you to publish the namespace { something } – part of your dovecot.conf?
By Karianne on Nov 30, 2008
Here is the part of my dovecot.conf:
namespace private {
separator = .
prefix = INBOX.
inbox = yes
}
By B. Diedrich on Dec 3, 2008