Re: Outlook 2007 - IMAP accounts - is using one inbox possible?
- From: "Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]" <tillman1952@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:23:46 -0400
"Jim K" <Jim K@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:07AC4B6E-1C84-4103-BD8D-EDC7CBAAEA6E@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This is a feature that is currently holding me back from using Outlook daily
- I actually have to login remotely to my mac using Logmein in order to get
the experience i want with mail, so I STRONGLY recommend that Microsoft
consider future development or even an extension that would support this
behavior. There are a number of other people that feel the same way I do -
as can be represented by a websearch on "unified inbox for IMAP".
You're welcome to produce a new RFC and extend the functionality of IMAP in any way you wish, but I doubt either you or Microsoft can unilaterally do anything about a mail protocol that has existed since around 1985. Besides, lets say Microsoft did extend the IMAP protocol. How could they induce all the other IMAP service providers (Google, AOL, etc) to modify their servers to recognize the additional protocol elements. On top of that, suppose you connect to multiple IMAP servers. Do you want your mail client to sync the extra features on all of the servers? How would you reconcile differing Inboxes on each server without having multiple Inboxes? There are so may problems with your suggestion that it seems impractical to me.
Your statement about IMAP being only for mail does not do justice to the
protocol. Several groups have found ways to create IMAP based sharing
solutions, integrating with open technologies such as LDAP for contacts and
iCal for Calendars.
LDAP and iCal aren't IMAP, now, are they? Outlook already supports LDAP. How do you propose reconciling multiple LDAP directories into a single Contacts folder when each LDAP server contains a completely unique set of contacts?
Content in the IMAP message can be used to automatically
add to calendars, and LDAP can be used to synchronize contact information
between IMAP accounts. This appears to be partially what Kolab does very
successfully, and/or may be what Bynari does in it's Insight Connector
product.
However, what remains for all mail clients other than OSX's Mail app is a
"unified inbox for IMAP", and furthermore Mail app has unified "Sent",
"Trash" and "Drafts" box as well.
Great for the people who want all their email addresses to be homogeneous, but theyn what's the purpose of multiple addresses?
They do this by simply consolidating the results from all the other key
folders into a single "virtual" directory that exists locally. Users
interacting with an individual piece of mail in the virtual directory do not
need to know where the original message was sent, as the message has such
information in it's headers, so replying to a message automatically
associates it to the given account, and stores it accordingly.
I can see so many people confused by this that it makes my head spin.
This is actually not an uncommon use of IMAP, as IMAP supports hierarchical
folders - so that clients can be at the top level of a folder and grab
everything below in one single list, or can choose specific folders within
the hierarchy and only see the specific data they want. So while the virtual
folder just aggregates the content from the other folders, it acts in much
the same way that IMAP already does. The "virtual" inbox is even a feature
of Horde's IMP email client, though it is limited to only showing unread
messages from all mailboxes.
This I might find worthwhile. If Microsoft were to extend the functionality of Search Folders to span multiple data stores, this wouldn't have to affect the underlying protocols.
That's actually one thing Mail app fails to do but Outlook did so well with
POP3 and unified inbox, having a single place to look for ALL unread mail
that was isolated from read mail - an awesome feature. But, it doesn't work
anymore when using IMAP folders.
It doesn't do it for multiple POP accounts when you deliver those accounts' messages to multiple data stores, either. Extending Search Folders would help here as well.
I have a few consulting clients who I've switched over to IMAP, and they
were very upset that their sent mail no longer went to the Sent box and their
IMAP inbox wasn't an Inbox.
Outlook 2007 has mitigated this somewhat by allowing the specification of the Sent Items folder on a per-account basis. I don't understand your comment that the "IMAP inbox wasn't an Inbox." Of course it is. Messages arrive there do they not? That's the very definition of an inbox.
--
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]
.
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