Using courier-imap as a local repository

[Todd Slater]

On 4/20/06, Karl Auer <kauer at biplane.com.au> wrote:
> Hi there.
>
> I have used offlienimap to get a copy of a remote IMAP mail respository
> onto my machine. Works well. I now have a directory structure in Maildir
> format (mail folder directories like INBOX all contain "cur", "tmp" and
> "new" subdirectories, within those each message is a file).
>
> Then I installed courier-imap, hoping to use it as to browse this new
> local repository. Rather than run it on connection, I'm starting it
> from /etc/init.d.
>
> The daemon finds the directory OK; I had to add a MAILDIR value
> in /etc/courier/imapd, but that was all.
>
> Evolution can connect with the server OK, but it doesn't display any
> folders or messages. Hitting "Send/Receive" just briefly flashes that
> dialog - no errors, but no folders or messages either.
>
> If I telnet to the server I can login, but doing "a select INBOX" gets
> me an error message: "a NO Unable to open this mailbox.".
>
> I'm a bit puzzled. I get the feeling I've missed something very obvious.
> I have made sure (although I don't think it should be necessary as the
> imap daemon appears to run as root) that every path element right down
> to the individual messages has read and execute permissions as
> appropriate. They are owned by the account I'm logging in as, so if the
> daemon is switching to that uid, there should still be no permissions
> problem.
>
> I see login messages in the system logs (and while MAILDIR was wrong, I
> saw those problems logged) but nothing seems to be being logged about
> this.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Regards, K.

You shouldn't have to run courier if you just want to read the mail in
your local maildirs. I have maildirs set up and use mutt to read, but
you should just be able to create a new account in Evolution and point
it to your local maildirs. It'll ask you for mailserver type, just
choose local maildir rather than imap.

HTH,
Todd