IMAP Folders Tree

[toronado]

In my eMail client, Thunderbird, my Bluehost eMail accounts show up with a weird hierarchy that doesn't make sense. The "Inbox" is the top level folder, and all other mailboxes (Drafts, Sent, Trash, etc) are SUB-folders of the Inbox. This makes no sense. And none of my non-Bluehost IMAP eMail accounts (GMX, Fastmail) are this way - only Bluehost accounts have this bizarre structure. Is there something I can do to change this in the way my eMail client is configured?

[felgall]

That's the way email folders are configured for IMAP - there is no real difference in the way the folders work except that only folders inside the inbox are kept on the server.

[toronado]

That's the way email folders are configured for IMAP

By who? Bluehost? Because that isn't how they are configured for my other IMAP accounts, such as Fastmail and GMX. The folders have the same names and functions (Drafts, Sent, etc) but they are not SUB-folders of the Inbox. That's what's weird about the Bluehost accounts.

[SteveS]

I haven't used Thunderbird in years, but in Outlook, I need to set the "Root folder path" to Inbox to make it appear that all folders are not a subfolder of the Inbox.

As best as I can recall, in Thunderbird, you need to set the "IMAP server directory" to "Inbox". Namespace should also be set to "Inbox". This may have changed in later versions of Thunderbird so this info may be out of date.

[felgall]

The folders have the same names and functions (Drafts, Sent, etc) but they are not SUB-folders of the Inbox.

They always are on the server - it is how you configure your email program that determines how they appear there. Obviously with your other IMAP email accounts you have configured them to look like they are separate folders.

[toronado]

I haven't used Thunderbird in years, but in Outlook, I need to set the "Root folder path" to Inbox to make it appear that all folders are not a subfolder of the Inbox.

As best as I can recall, in Thunderbird, you need to set the "IMAP server directory" to "Inbox". Namespace should also be set to "Inbox". This may have changed in later versions of Thunderbird so this info may be out of date.

Awesome. That totally worked.

Actually the personal namespace was already set to "INBOX." (literally - with the dot at the end and the quotes), I just needed to add INBOX to the IMAP server directory field. Took a little while to update in my client - at first I had duplicate folders - but then it straightened itself out like magic. And that's lucky for me since I have no clue as to how any of this actually works.

[toronado]

They always are on the server

That much I did know.



it is how you configure your email program that determines how they appear there. Obviously with your other IMAP email accounts you have configured them to look like they are separate folders.

Actually Thunderbird configured the accounts, not me.

The way Thunderbird works is when you want to create a new account, you just feed it an email address and a password and it "figures out" everything else - with mixed results. I had never even gone into the advanced settings where you configure namespaces and IMAP server directories before. All I've ever done is occasionally set mail server addresses and ports.