This problem has been recurring for a month or so (and it's driving me nuts). I have mail accounts on an IMAP server (Courier) and user mail sits out on the server under ${HOME}/Maildir.
For a time now, I've noticed that when I restart my mail client I'll have a secondary "INBOX" folder under my "Inbox". There's a "Trash" folder underneath this extra INBOX. If these were real directories it'd look like
and in the mail clients it appears something like
Code:
Inbox
+---INBOX
+---Trash
On the IMAP server, I will, occasionally, see a subdirectory under Maildir like
but not always. For example, I do not see such a subdirectory today but all of the mail clients are showing the extra INBOX and Trash folders.
I'm often able to unsubscribe the additional Trash folder and delete it and the parent INBOX. They then show up in the normal Trash folder. I am sometimes able to empty the Trash folder and they'll disappear but not always. But... it and the extra INBOX folders reappear after restarting the mail client.
I should note that this has been happening with other mail subfolders that I've created in the past but were deleted after no longer being needed reappear after a mail client restart. I can delete them again, empty the Trash, and they appear to be cleaned up, no subdirectories appear in the Maildir directory on the IMAP server, but when I restart the mail client, they're ba-a-a-ck.
I ran across a fix in the Thunderbird user forums from 2007 that had you go into the configuration editor and change a setting for the Trash folder. However, that didn't help. And doesn't address the other zombie mail folders at all. And I'm seeing these phantom subfolders regardless of the mail client I use: Thunderbird, Seamonkey, Evolution, Kmail. (Server problem, perhaps?)
Questions:
Has anyone else heard of this happening?
I suspect that there's something out of sync in the Maildir structure files. But what?
Does anyone know of a way to do a consistency check on Maildir structures? (And, hopefully, correct any problems found.)
TIA...
--
Rick