| Network Working Group | A. Melnikov, Ed. |
| Internet-Draft | Isode Ltd |
| Obsoletes: 3501 (if approved) | B. Leiba, Ed. |
| Intended status: Standards Track | Futurewei Technologies |
| Expires: January 30, 2021 | July 29, 2020 |
Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) - Version 4rev2
draft-ietf-extra-imap4rev2-17
The Internet Message Access Protocol, Version 4rev2 (IMAP4rev2) allows a client to access and manipulate electronic mail messages on a server. IMAP4rev2 permits manipulation of mailboxes (remote message folders) in a way that is functionally equivalent to local folders. IMAP4rev2 also provides the capability for an offline client to resynchronize with the server.
IMAP4rev2 includes operations for creating, deleting, and renaming mailboxes, checking for new messages, permanently removing messages, setting and clearing flags, RFC 5322, RFC 2045 and RFC 2231 parsing, searching, and selective fetching of message attributes, texts, and portions thereof. Messages in IMAP4rev2 are accessed by the use of numbers. These numbers are either message sequence numbers or unique identifiers.
IMAP4rev2 does not specify a means of posting mail; this function is handled by a mail submission protocol such as RFC 6409.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on January 30, 2021.
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This document is written from the point of view of the implementor of an IMAP4rev2 client or server. Beyond the protocol overview in section 2, it is not optimized for someone trying to understand the operation of the protocol. The material in sections 3 through 5 provides the general context and definitions with which IMAP4rev2 operates.
Sections 6, 7, and 9 describe the IMAP commands, responses, and syntax, respectively. The relationships among these are such that it is almost impossible to understand any of them separately. In particular, do not attempt to deduce command syntax from the command section alone; instead refer to the Formal Syntax section.
"Conventions" are basic principles or procedures. Document conventions are noted in this section.
In examples, "C:" and "S:" indicate lines sent by the client and server respectively.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.
The word "can" (not "may") is used to refer to a possible circumstance or situation, as opposed to an optional facility of the protocol.
"User" is used to refer to a human user, whereas "client" refers to the software being run by the user.
"Connection" refers to the entire sequence of client/server interaction from the initial establishment of the network connection until its termination.
"Session" refers to the sequence of client/server interaction from the time that a mailbox is selected (SELECT or EXAMINE command) until the time that selection ends (SELECT or EXAMINE of another mailbox, CLOSE command, UNSELECT command, or connection termination).
Characters are 8-bit UTF-8 (of which 7-bit US-ASCII is a subset) unless otherwise specified. Other character sets are indicated using a "CHARSET", as described in [MIME-IMT] and defined in [CHARSET]. CHARSETs have important additional semantics in addition to defining character set; refer to these documents for more detail.
There are several protocol conventions in IMAP. These refer to aspects of the specification which are not strictly part of the IMAP protocol, but reflect generally-accepted practice. Implementations need to be aware of these conventions, and avoid conflicts whether or not they implement the convention. For example, "&" may not be used as a hierarchy delimiter since it conflicts with the Mailbox International Naming Convention, and other uses of "&" in mailbox names are impacted as well.
Implementors of the IMAP protocol are strongly encouraged to read the IMAP implementation recommendations document [IMAP-IMPLEMENTATION] in conjunction with this document, to help understand the intricacies of this protocol and how best to build an interoperable product.
IMAP4rev2 is designed to be upwards compatible from the [IMAP2] and unpublished IMAP2bis protocols. IMAP4rev2 is largely compatible with the IMAP4rev1 protocol described in RFC 3501 and the IMAP4 protocol described in RFC 1730; the exception being in certain facilities added in RFC 1730 that proved problematic and were subsequently removed. In the course of the evolution of IMAP4rev2, some aspects in the earlier protocols have become obsolete. Obsolete commands, responses, and data formats which an IMAP4rev2 implementation can encounter when used with an earlier implementation are described in Appendix D and [IMAP-OBSOLETE].
Other compatibility issues with IMAP2bis, the most common variant of the earlier protocol, are discussed in [IMAP-COMPAT]. A full discussion of compatibility issues with rare (and presumed extinct) variants of [IMAP2] is in [IMAP-HISTORICAL]; this document is primarily of historical interest.
IMAP was originally developed for the older [RFC-822] standard, and as a consequence several fetch items in IMAP incorporate "RFC822" in their name. In all cases, "RFC822" should be interpreted as a reference to the updated [RFC-5322] standard.
The IMAP4rev2 protocol assumes a reliable data stream such as that provided by TCP. When TCP is used, an IMAP4rev2 server listens on port 143 or port 993 (IMAP-over-TLS).
An IMAP4rev2 connection consists of the establishment of a client/server network connection, an initial greeting from the server, and client/server interactions. These client/server interactions consist of a client command, server data, and a server completion result response.
All interactions transmitted by client and server are in the form of lines, that is, strings that end with a CRLF. The protocol receiver of an IMAP4rev2 client or server is either reading a line, or is reading a sequence of octets with a known count followed by a line.
The client command begins an operation. Each client command is prefixed with an identifier (typically a short alphanumeric string, e.g., A0001, A0002, etc.) called a "tag". A different tag is generated by the client for each command. (More formally: the client SHOULD generate a unique tag for every command, but a server MUST accept tag reuse.)
Clients MUST follow the syntax outlined in this specification strictly. It is a syntax error to send a command with missing or extraneous spaces or arguments.
There are two cases in which a line from the client does not represent a complete command. In one case, a command argument is quoted with an octet count (see the description of literal in String under Data Formats); in the other case, the command arguments require server feedback (see the AUTHENTICATE command). In either case, the server sends a command continuation request response if it is ready for the octets (if appropriate) and the remainder of the command. This response is prefixed with the token "+".
The protocol receiver of an IMAP4rev2 server reads a command line from the client, parses the command and its arguments, and transmits server data and a server command completion result response.
Data transmitted by the server to the client and status responses that do not indicate command completion are prefixed with the token "*", and are called untagged responses.
Server data MAY be sent as a result of a client command, or MAY be sent unilaterally by the server. There is no syntactic difference between server data that resulted from a specific command and server data that were sent unilaterally.
The server completion result response indicates the success or failure of the operation. It is tagged with the same tag as the client command which began the operation. Thus, if more than one command is in progress, the tag in a server completion response identifies the command to which the response applies. There are three possible server completion responses: OK (indicating success), NO (indicating failure), or BAD (indicating a protocol error such as unrecognized command or command syntax error).
Servers SHOULD enforce the syntax outlined in this specification strictly. Any client command with a protocol syntax error, including (but not limited to) missing or extraneous spaces or arguments, SHOULD be rejected, and the client given a BAD server completion response.
The protocol receiver of an IMAP4rev2 client reads a response line from the server. It then takes action on the response based upon the first token of the response, which can be a tag, a "*", or a "+".
A client MUST be prepared to accept any server response at all times. This includes server data that was not requested. Server data SHOULD be recorded, so that the client can reference its recorded copy rather than sending a command to the server to request the data. In the case of certain server data, the data MUST be recorded.
This topic is discussed in greater detail in the Server Responses section.
In addition to message text, each message has several attributes associated with it. These attributes can be retrieved individually or in conjunction with other attributes or message texts.
Messages in IMAP4rev2 are accessed by one of two numbers; the unique identifier or the message sequence number.
An unsigned non-zero 32-bit value assigned to each message, which when used with the unique identifier validity value (see below) forms a 64-bit value that MUST NOT refer to any other message in the mailbox or any subsequent mailbox with the same name forever. Unique identifiers are assigned in a strictly ascending fashion in the mailbox; as each message is added to the mailbox it is assigned a higher UID than the message(s) which were added previously. Unlike message sequence numbers, unique identifiers are not necessarily contiguous.
The unique identifier of a message MUST NOT change during the session, and SHOULD NOT change between sessions. Any change of unique identifiers between sessions MUST be detectable using the UIDVALIDITY mechanism discussed below. Persistent unique identifiers are required for a client to resynchronize its state from a previous session with the server (e.g., disconnected or offline access clients [IMAP-MODEL]); this is discussed further in [IMAP-DISC].
Associated with every mailbox are two 32-bit unsigned non-zero values which aid in unique identifier handling: the next unique identifier value (UIDNEXT) and the unique identifier validity value (UIDVALIDITY).
The next unique identifier value is the predicted value that will be assigned to a new message in the mailbox. Unless the unique identifier validity also changes (see below), the next unique identifier value MUST have the following two characteristics. First, the next unique identifier value MUST NOT change unless new messages are added to the mailbox; and second, the next unique identifier value MUST change whenever new messages are added to the mailbox, even if those new messages are subsequently expunged.
The unique identifier validity value is sent in a UIDVALIDITY response code in an OK untagged response at mailbox selection time. If unique identifiers from an earlier session fail to persist in this session, the unique identifier validity value MUST be greater than the one used in the earlier session. A good UIDVALIDITY value to use is a 32-bit representation of the current date/time when the value is assigned: this ensures that the value is unique and always increases. Another possible alternative is a global counter that gets incremented every time a mailbox is created.
A relative position from 1 to the number of messages in the mailbox. This position MUST be ordered by ascending unique identifier. As each new message is added, it is assigned a message sequence number that is 1 higher than the number of messages in the mailbox before that new message was added.
Message sequence numbers can be reassigned during the session. For example, when a message is permanently removed (expunged) from the mailbox, the message sequence number for all subsequent messages is decremented. The number of messages in the mailbox is also decremented. Similarly, a new message can be assigned a message sequence number that was once held by some other message prior to an expunge.
In addition to accessing messages by relative position in the mailbox, message sequence numbers can be used in mathematical calculations. For example, if an untagged "11 EXISTS" is received, and previously an untagged "8 EXISTS" was received, three new messages have arrived with message sequence numbers of 9, 10, and 11. Another example, if message 287 in a 523 message mailbox has UID 12345, there are exactly 286 messages which have lesser UIDs and 236 messages which have greater UIDs.
A list of zero or more named tokens associated with the message. A flag is set by its addition to this list, and is cleared by its removal. There are two types of flags in IMAP4rev2. A flag of either type can be permanent or session-only.
A system flag is a flag name that is pre-defined in this specification and begin with "\". Certain system flags (\Deleted and \Seen) have special semantics described elsewhere in this document. The currently-defined system flags are:
A keyword is defined by the server implementation. Keywords do not begin with "\". Servers MAY permit the client to define new keywords in the mailbox (see the description of the PERMANENTFLAGS response code for more information). Some keywords that start with "$" are also defined in this specification.
This document defines several keywords that were not originally defined in RFC 3501, but which were found to be useful by client implementations. These keywords SHOULD be supported (i.e. allowed in SEARCH, allowed and preserved in APPEND, COPY, MOVE commands) by server implementations:
$Junk and $NotJunk are mutually exclusive. If more than one of them is set for a message, the client MUST treat this as if none of them is set and SHOULD unset both of them on the IMAP server.
Other registered keywords can be found in the "IMAP and JMAP Keywords" registry [IMAP-KEYWORDS-REG]. New keywords SHOULD be registered in this registry using the procedure specified in [RFC5788].
A flag can be permanent or session-only on a per-flag basis. Permanent flags are those which the client can add or remove from the message flags permanently; that is, concurrent and subsequent sessions will see any change in permanent flags. Changes to session flags are valid only in that session.
The internal date and time of the message on the server. This is not the date and time in the [RFC-5322] header, but rather a date and time which reflects when the message was received. In the case of messages delivered via [SMTP], this SHOULD be the date and time of final delivery of the message as defined by [SMTP]. In the case of messages delivered by the IMAP4rev2 COPY or MOVE command, this SHOULD be the internal date and time of the source message. In the case of messages delivered by the IMAP4rev2 APPEND command, this SHOULD be the date and time as specified in the APPEND command description. All other cases are implementation defined.
The number of octets in the message, as expressed in [RFC-5322] format.
A parsed representation of the [RFC-5322] header of the message. Note that the IMAP Envelope structure is not the same as an [SMTP] envelope.
A parsed representation of the [MIME-IMB] body structure information of the message.
In addition to being able to fetch the full [RFC-5322] text of a message, IMAP4rev2 permits the fetching of portions of the full message text. Specifically, it is possible to fetch the [RFC-5322] message header, [RFC-5322] message body, a [MIME-IMB] body part, or a [MIME-IMB] header.
Once the connection between client and server is established, an IMAP4rev2 connection is in one of four states. The initial state is identified in the server greeting. Most commands are only valid in certain states. It is a protocol error for the client to attempt a command while the connection is in an inappropriate state, and the server will respond with a BAD or NO (depending upon server implementation) command completion result.
In the not authenticated state, the client MUST supply authentication credentials before most commands will be permitted. This state is entered when a connection starts unless the connection has been pre-authenticated.
In the authenticated state, the client is authenticated and MUST select a mailbox to access before commands that affect messages will be permitted. This state is entered when a pre-authenticated connection starts, when acceptable authentication credentials have been provided, after an error in selecting a mailbox, or after a successful CLOSE command.
In a selected state, a mailbox has been selected to access. This state is entered when a mailbox has been successfully selected.
In the logout state, the connection is being terminated. This state can be entered as a result of a client request (via the LOGOUT command) or by unilateral action on the part of either the client or server.
If the client requests the logout state, the server MUST send an untagged BYE response and a tagged OK response to the LOGOUT command before the server closes the connection; and the client MUST read the tagged OK response to the LOGOUT command before the client closes the connection.
A server SHOULD NOT unilaterally close the connection without sending an untagged BYE response that contains the reason for having done so. A client SHOULD NOT unilaterally close the connection, and instead SHOULD issue a LOGOUT command. If the server detects that the client has unilaterally closed the connection, the server MAY omit the untagged BYE response and simply close its connection.
+----------------------+
|connection established|
+----------------------+
||
\/
+--------------------------------------+
| server greeting |
+--------------------------------------+
|| (1) || (2) || (3)
\/ || ||
+-----------------+ || ||
|Not Authenticated| || ||
+-----------------+ || ||
|| (7) || (4) || ||
|| \/ \/ ||
|| +----------------+ ||
|| | Authenticated |<=++ ||
|| +----------------+ || ||
|| || (7) || (5) || (6) ||
|| || \/ || ||
|| || +--------+ || ||
|| || |Selected|==++ ||
|| || +--------+ ||
|| || || (7) ||
\/ \/ \/ \/
+--------------------------------------+
| Logout |
+--------------------------------------+
||
\/
+-------------------------------+
|both sides close the connection|
+-------------------------------+
(1) connection without pre-authentication (OK greeting)
(2) pre-authenticated connection (PREAUTH greeting)
(3) rejected connection (BYE greeting)
(4) successful LOGIN or AUTHENTICATE command
(5) successful SELECT or EXAMINE command
(6) CLOSE command, unsolicited CLOSED response code or
failed SELECT or EXAMINE command
(7) LOGOUT command, server shutdown, or connection closed
IMAP4rev2 uses textual commands and responses. Data in IMAP4rev2 can be in one of several forms: atom, number, string, parenthesized list, or NIL. Note that a particular data item may take more than one form; for example, a data item defined as using "astring" syntax may be either an atom or a string.
An atom consists of one or more non-special characters.
A set of messages can be referenced by a sequence set containing either message sequence numbers or unique identifiers. See Section 9 for details. Sequence sets can contain ranges (e.g. "5:50"), an enumeration of specific message/UID numbers, a special symbol "*", or a combination of the above.
A "UID set" is similar to the sequence set of unique identifiers; however, the "*" value for a sequence number is not permitted.
A number consists of one or more digit characters, and represents a numeric value.
A string is in one of three forms: synchonizing literal, non-synchronizing literal or quoted string. The synchronizing literal form is the general form of string. The non-synchronizing literal form is also the general form, but has length limitation. The quoted string form is an alternative that avoids the overhead of processing a literal at the cost of limitations of characters which may be used.
When the distinction between synchronizing and non-synchronizing literals is not important, this document just uses the term "literal".
A synchronizing literal is a sequence of zero or more octets (including CR and LF), prefix-quoted with an octet count in the form of an open brace ("{"), the number of octets, close brace ("}"), and CRLF. In the case of synchronizing literals transmitted from server to client, the CRLF is immediately followed by the octet data. In the case of synchronizing literals transmitted from client to server, the client MUST wait to receive a command continuation request (described later in this document) before sending the octet data (and the remainder of the command).
The non-synchronizing literal is an alternate form of synchronizing literal, and it may appear in communication from client to server instead of the synchonizing form of literal. The non-synchronizing literal form MUST NOT be sent from server to client. The non-synchronizing literal is distinguished from the synchronizing literal by having a plus ("+") between the octet count and the closing brace ("}"). The server does not generate a command continuation request in response to a non-synchronizing literal, and clients are not required to wait before sending the octets of a non- synchronizing literal. Non-synchronizing literals MUST NOT be larger than 4096 octets. Any literal larger than 4096 bytes MUST be sent as a synchronizing literal. (Non-synchronizing literals defined in this document are the same as non-synchronizing literals defined by the LITERAL- extension from [RFC7888]. See that document for details on how to handle invalid non-synchronizing literals longer than 4096 octets and for interaction with other IMAP extensions.)
A quoted string is a sequence of zero or more Unicode characters, excluding CR and LF, encoded in UTF-8, with double quote (<">) characters at each end.
The empty string is represented as "" (a quoted string with zero characters between double quotes), as {0} followed by CRLF (a synchronizing literal with an octet count of 0) or as {0+} followed by CRLF (a non-synchronizing literal with an octet count of 0).
8-bit textual and binary mail is supported through the use of a [MIME-IMB] content transfer encoding. IMAP4rev2 implementations MAY transmit 8-bit or multi-octet characters in literals, but SHOULD do so only when the [CHARSET] is identified.
IMAP4rev2 is compatible with [I18N-HDRS]. As a result, the identified charset for header-field values with 8-bit content is UTF-8 [UTF-8]. IMAP4rev2 implementations MUST accept and MAY transmit [UTF-8] text in quoted-strings as long as the string does not contain NUL, CR, or LF. This differs from IMAP4rev1 implementations.
Although a BINARY content transfer encoding is defined, unencoded binary strings are not permitted, unless returned in a <literal8> in response to BINARY.PEEK[<section-binary>]<<partial>> or BINARY[<section-binary>]<<partial>> FETCH data item. A "binary string" is any string with NUL characters. A string with an excessive amount of CTL characters MAY also be considered to be binary. Unless returned in response to BINARY.PEEK[...]/BINARY[...] FETCH, client and server implementations MUST encode binary data into a textual form, such as BASE64, before transmitting the data.
Data structures are represented as a "parenthesized list"; a sequence of data items, delimited by space, and bounded at each end by parentheses. A parenthesized list can contain other parenthesized lists, using multiple levels of parentheses to indicate nesting.
The empty list is represented as () -- a parenthesized list with no members.
The special form "NIL" represents the non-existence of a particular data item that is represented as a string or parenthesized list, as distinct from the empty string "" or the empty parenthesized list ().
Examples:
The following LIST response:
* LIST () "/" NIL
is equivalent to:
* LIST () "/" "NIL"
as LIST response ABNF is using astring for mailbox name.
However, the following response
* FETCH 1 (BODY[1] NIL)
is not equivalent to:
* FETCH 1 (BODY[1] "NIL")
The former means absence of the body part, while the latter
means that it contains literal sequence of characters "NIL".
The following rules are listed here to ensure that all IMAP4rev2 implementations interoperate properly.
In IMAP4rev2, Mailbox names are encoded in Net-Unicode [NET-UNICODE] (this differs from IMAP4rev1). Client implementations MAY attempt to create Net-Unicode mailbox names, and MUST interpret any 8-bit mailbox names returned by LIST as [NET-UNICODE]. Server implementations MUST prohibit the creation of 8-bit mailbox names that do not comply with Net-Unicode. However, servers MAY accept a de-normalized UTF-8 mailbox name and convert it to Unicode normalization form "NFC" (as per Net-Unicode requirements) prior to mailbox creation. Servers that choose to accept such de-normalized UTF-8 mailbox names MUST accept them in all IMAP commands that have a mailbox name parameter. In particular SELECT <name> must open the same mailbox that was successfully created with CREATE <name>, even if <name> is a de-normalized UTF-8 mailbox name.
The case-insensitive mailbox name INBOX is a special name reserved to mean "the primary mailbox for this user on this server". (Note that this special name may not exist on some servers for some users, for example if the user has no access to personal namespace.) The interpretation of all other names is implementation-dependent.
In particular, this specification takes no position on case sensitivity in non-INBOX mailbox names. Some server implementations are fully case-sensitive in ASCII range; others preserve case of a newly-created name but otherwise are case-insensitive; and yet others coerce names to a particular case. Client implementations must be able to interact with any of these.
There are certain client considerations when creating a new mailbox name:
If it is desired to export hierarchical mailbox names, mailbox names MUST be left-to-right hierarchical using a single character to separate levels of hierarchy. The same hierarchy separator character is used for all levels of hierarchy within a single name.
Personal Namespace: A namespace that the server considers within the personal scope of the authenticated user on a particular connection. Typically, only the authenticated user has access to mailboxes in their Personal Namespace. It is the part of the namespace that belongs to the user that is allocated for mailboxes. If an INBOX exists for a user, it MUST appear within the user's personal namespace. In the typical case, there SHOULD be only one Personal Namespace on a server.
Other Users' Namespace: A namespace that consists of mailboxes from the Personal Namespaces of other users. To access mailboxes in the Other Users' Namespace, the currently authenticated user MUST be explicitly granted access rights. For example, it is common for a manager to grant to their secretary access rights to their mailbox. In the typical case, there SHOULD be only one Other Users' Namespace on a server.
Shared Namespace: A namespace that consists of mailboxes that are intended to be shared amongst users and do not exist within a user's Personal Namespace.
The namespaces a server uses MAY differ on a per-user basis.
By convention, the first hierarchical element of any mailbox name which begins with "#" identifies the "namespace" of the remainder of the name. This makes it possible to disambiguate between different types of mailbox stores, each of which have their own namespaces.
Namespaces that include the "#" character are not IMAP URL [IMAP-URL] friendly requiring the "#" character to be represented as %23 when within URLs. As such, server implementers MAY instead consider using namespace prefixes that do not contain the "#" character.
Previous version of this protocol does not define a default server namespace. Two common namespace models have evolved:
The "Personal Mailbox" model, in which the default namespace that is presented consists of only the user's personal mailboxes. To access shared mailboxes, the user must use an escape mechanism to reach another namespace.
The "Complete Hierarchy" model, in which the default namespace that is presented includes the user's personal mailboxes along with any other mailboxes they have access to.
At any time, a server can send data that the client did not request. Sometimes, such behavior is REQUIRED. For example, agents other than the server MAY add messages to the mailbox (e.g., new message delivery), change the flags of the messages in the mailbox (e.g., simultaneous access to the same mailbox by multiple agents), or even remove messages from the mailbox. A server MUST send mailbox size updates automatically if a mailbox size change is observed during the processing of a command. A server SHOULD send message flag updates automatically, without requiring the client to request such updates explicitly.
Special rules exist for server notification of a client about the removal of messages to prevent synchronization errors; see the description of the EXPUNGE response for more detail. In particular, it is NOT permitted to send an EXISTS response that would reduce the number of messages in the mailbox; only the EXPUNGE response can do this.
Regardless of what implementation decisions a client makes on remembering data from the server, a client implementation MUST record mailbox size updates. It MUST NOT assume that any command after the initial mailbox selection will return the size of the mailbox.
Server implementations are permitted to send an untagged response (except for EXPUNGE) while there is no command in progress. Server implementations that send such responses MUST deal with flow control considerations. Specifically, they MUST either (1) verify that the size of the data does not exceed the underlying transport's available window size, or (2) use non-blocking writes.
If a server has an inactivity autologout timer that applies to sessions after authentication, the duration of that timer MUST be at least 30 minutes. The receipt of ANY command from the client during that interval SHOULD suffice to reset the autologout timer.
The client MAY send another command without waiting for the completion result response of a command, subject to ambiguity rules (see below) and flow control constraints on the underlying data stream. Similarly, a server MAY begin processing another command before processing the current command to completion, subject to ambiguity rules. However, any command continuation request responses and command continuations MUST be negotiated before any subsequent command is initiated.
The exception is if an ambiguity would result because of a command that would affect the results of other commands. If the server detects a possible ambiguity, it MUST execute commands to completion in the order given by the client.
The most obvious example of ambiguity is when a command would affect the results of another command, e.g., a FETCH of a message's flags and a STORE of that same message's flags.
A non-obvious ambiguity occurs with commands that permit an untagged EXPUNGE response (commands other than FETCH, STORE, and SEARCH), since an untagged EXPUNGE response can invalidate sequence numbers in a subsequent command. This is not a problem for FETCH, STORE, or SEARCH commands because servers are prohibited from sending EXPUNGE responses while any of those commands are in progress. Therefore, if the client sends any command other than FETCH, STORE, or SEARCH, it MUST wait for the completion result response before sending a command with message sequence numbers.
For example, the following non-waiting command sequences are invalid:
The following are examples of valid non-waiting command sequences:
Use of SEARCH result variable (see Section 6.4.4.1) creates direct dependency between two commands. See Section 6.4.4.2 for more considerations about pipelining such dependent commands.
IMAP4rev2 commands are described in this section. Commands are organized by the state in which the command is permitted. Commands which are permitted in multiple states are listed in the minimum permitted state (for example, commands valid in authenticated and selected state are listed in the authenticated state commands).
Command arguments, identified by "Arguments:" in the command descriptions below, are described by function, not by syntax. The precise syntax of command arguments is described in the Formal Syntax (Section 9).
Some commands cause specific server responses to be returned; these are identified by "Responses:" in the command descriptions below. See the response descriptions in the Responses section for information on these responses, and the Formal Syntax section for the precise syntax of these responses. It is possible for server data to be transmitted as a result of any command. Thus, commands that do not specifically require server data specify "no specific responses for this command" instead of "none".
The "Result:" in the command description refers to the possible tagged status responses to a command, and any special interpretation of these status responses.
The state of a connection is only changed by successful commands which are documented as changing state. A rejected command (BAD response) never changes the state of the connection or of the selected mailbox. A failed command (NO response) generally does not change the state of the connection or of the selected mailbox; the exception being the SELECT and EXAMINE commands.
The following commands are valid in any state: CAPABILITY, NOOP, and LOGOUT.
The CAPABILITY command requests a listing of capabilities that the server supports. The server MUST send a single untagged CAPABILITY response with "IMAP4rev2" as one of the listed capabilities before the (tagged) OK response.
A capability name which begins with "AUTH=" indicates that the server supports that particular authentication mechanism. All such names are, by definition, part of this specification. For example, the authorization capability for an experimental "blurdybloop" authenticator would be "AUTH=XBLURDYBLOOP" and not "XAUTH=BLURDYBLOOP" or "XAUTH=XBLURDYBLOOP".
Other capability names refer to extensions, revisions, or amendments to this specification. See the documentation of the CAPABILITY response for additional information. No capabilities, beyond the base IMAP4rev2 set defined in this specification, are enabled without explicit client action to invoke the capability.
Client and server implementations MUST implement the STARTTLS, LOGINDISABLED, and AUTH=PLAIN (described in [PLAIN]) capabilities. See the Security Considerations section for important information.
See the section entitled "Client Commands - Experimental/Expansion" for information about the form of site or implementation-specific capabilities.
Example: C: abcd CAPABILITY
S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev2 STARTTLS AUTH=GSSAPI
LOGINDISABLED
S: abcd OK CAPABILITY completed
C: efgh STARTTLS
S: efgh OK STARTLS completed
<TLS negotiation, further commands are under [TLS] layer>
C: ijkl CAPABILITY
S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev2 AUTH=GSSAPI AUTH=PLAIN
S: ijkl OK CAPABILITY completed
The NOOP command always succeeds. It does nothing.
Since any command can return a status update as untagged data, the NOOP command can be used as a periodic poll for new messages or message status updates during a period of inactivity (the IDLE command Section 6.3.13 should be used instead of NOOP if real-time updates to mailbox state are desirable). The NOOP command can also be used to reset any inactivity autologout timer on the server.
Example: C: a002 NOOP
S: a002 OK NOOP completed
. . .
C: a047 NOOP
S: * 22 EXPUNGE
S: * 23 EXISTS
S: * 14 FETCH (UID 1305 FLAGS (\Seen \Deleted))
S: a047 OK NOOP completed
The LOGOUT command informs the server that the client is done with the connection. The server MUST send a BYE untagged response before the (tagged) OK response, and then close the network connection.
Example: C: A023 LOGOUT
S: * BYE IMAP4rev2 Server logging out
S: A023 OK LOGOUT completed
(Server and client then close the connection)
In the not authenticated state, the AUTHENTICATE or LOGIN command establishes authentication and enters the authenticated state. The AUTHENTICATE command provides a general mechanism for a variety of authentication techniques, privacy protection, and integrity checking; whereas the LOGIN command uses a traditional user name and plaintext password pair and has no means of establishing privacy protection or integrity checking.
The STARTTLS command is an alternate form of establishing session privacy protection and integrity checking, but does not by itself establish authentication or enter the authenticated state.
Server implementations MAY allow access to certain mailboxes without establishing authentication. This can be done by means of the ANONYMOUS [SASL] authenticator described in [ANONYMOUS]. An older convention is a LOGIN command using the userid "anonymous"; in this case, a password is required although the server may choose to accept any password. The restrictions placed on anonymous users are implementation-dependent.
Once authenticated (including as anonymous), it is not possible to re-enter not authenticated state.
In addition to the universal commands (CAPABILITY, NOOP, and LOGOUT), the following commands are valid in the not authenticated state: STARTTLS, AUTHENTICATE and LOGIN. See the Security Considerations section for important information about these commands.
A [TLS] negotiation begins immediately after the CRLF at the end of the tagged OK response from the server. Once a client issues a STARTTLS command, it MUST NOT issue further commands until a server response is seen and the [TLS] negotiation is complete.
The server remains in the non-authenticated state, even if client credentials are supplied during the [TLS] negotiation. This does not preclude an authentication mechanism such as EXTERNAL (defined in [SASL]) from using client identity determined by the [TLS] negotiation.
Once [TLS] has been started, the client MUST discard cached information about server capabilities and SHOULD re-issue the CAPABILITY command. This is necessary to protect against man-in- the-middle attacks which alter the capabilities list prior to STARTTLS. The server MAY advertise different capabilities, and in particular SHOULD NOT advertise the STARTTLS capability, after a successful STARTTLS command.
Example: C: a001 CAPABILITY
S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev2 STARTTLS LOGINDISABLED
S: a001 OK CAPABILITY completed
C: a002 STARTTLS
S: a002 OK Begin TLS negotiation now
<TLS negotiation, further commands are under [TLS] layer>
C: a003 CAPABILITY
S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev2 AUTH=PLAIN
S: a003 OK CAPABILITY completed
C: a004 LOGIN joe password
S: a004 OK LOGIN completed
The AUTHENTICATE command indicates a [SASL] authentication mechanism to the server. If the server supports the requested authentication mechanism, it performs an authentication protocol exchange to authenticate and identify the client. It MAY also negotiate an OPTIONAL security layer for subsequent protocol interactions. If the requested authentication mechanism is not supported, the server SHOULD reject the AUTHENTICATE command by sending a tagged NO response.
The AUTHENTICATE command supports the optional "initial response" feature defined in Section 5.1 of [SASL]. The client doesn't need to use it. If a SASL mechanism supports "initial response", but it is not specified by the client, the server handles this as specified in Section 3 of [SASL].
The service name specified by this protocol's profile of [SASL] is "imap".
The authentication protocol exchange consists of a series of server challenges and client responses that are specific to the authentication mechanism. A server challenge consists of a command continuation request response with the "+" token followed by a BASE64 encoded (see Section 4 of [RFC4648]) string. The client response consists of a single line consisting of a BASE64 encoded string. If the client wishes to cancel an authentication exchange, it issues a line consisting of a single "*". If the server receives such a response, or if it receives an invalid BASE64 string (e.g. characters outside the BASE64 alphabet, or non-terminal "="), it MUST reject the AUTHENTICATE command by sending a tagged BAD response.
As with any other client response, this initial response MUST be encoded as BASE64. It also MUST be transmitted outside of a quoted string or literal. To send a zero-length initial response, the client MUST send a single pad character ("="). This indicates that the response is present, but is a zero-length string.
When decoding the BASE64 data in the initial response, decoding errors MUST be treated as in any normal SASL client response, i.e. with a tagged BAD response. In particular, the server should check for any characters not explicitly allowed by the BASE64 alphabet, as well as any sequence of BASE64 characters that contains the pad character ('=') anywhere other than the end of the string (e.g., "=AAA" and "AAA=BBB" are not allowed).
If the client uses an initial response with a SASL mechanism that does not support an initial response, the server MUST reject the command with a tagged BAD response.
If a security layer is negotiated through the [SASL] authentication exchange, it takes effect immediately following the CRLF that concludes the authentication exchange for the client, and the CRLF of the tagged OK response for the server.
While client and server implementations MUST implement the AUTHENTICATE command itself, it is not required to implement any authentication mechanisms other than the PLAIN mechanism described in [PLAIN]. Also, an authentication mechanism is not required to support any security layers.
Servers and clients can support multiple authentication mechanisms. The server SHOULD list its supported authentication mechanisms in the response to the CAPABILITY command so that the client knows which authentication mechanisms to use.
A server MAY include a CAPABILITY response code in the tagged OK response of a successful AUTHENTICATE command in order to send capabilities automatically. It is unnecessary for a client to send a separate CAPABILITY command if it recognizes these automatic capabilities. This should only be done if a security layer was not negotiated by the AUTHENTICATE command, because the tagged OK response as part of an AUTHENTICATE command is not protected by encryption/integrity checking. [SASL] requires the client to re-issue a CAPABILITY command in this case. The server MAY advertise different capabilities after a successful AUTHENTICATE command.
If an AUTHENTICATE command fails with a NO response, the client MAY try another authentication mechanism by issuing another AUTHENTICATE command. It MAY also attempt to authenticate by using the LOGIN command (see Section 6.2.3 for more detail). In other words, the client MAY request authentication types in decreasing order of preference, with the LOGIN command as a last resort.
The authorization identity passed from the client to the server during the authentication exchange is interpreted by the server as the user name whose privileges the client is requesting.
Example: S: * OK IMAP4rev2 Server
C: A001 AUTHENTICATE GSSAPI
S: +
C: YIIB+wYJKoZIhvcSAQICAQBuggHqMIIB5qADAgEFoQMCAQ6iBw
MFACAAAACjggEmYYIBIjCCAR6gAwIBBaESGxB1Lndhc2hpbmd0
b24uZWR1oi0wK6ADAgEDoSQwIhsEaW1hcBsac2hpdmFtcy5jYW
Mud2FzaGluZ3Rvbi5lZHWjgdMwgdCgAwIBAaEDAgEDooHDBIHA
cS1GSa5b+fXnPZNmXB9SjL8Ollj2SKyb+3S0iXMljen/jNkpJX
AleKTz6BQPzj8duz8EtoOuNfKgweViyn/9B9bccy1uuAE2HI0y
C/PHXNNU9ZrBziJ8Lm0tTNc98kUpjXnHZhsMcz5Mx2GR6dGknb
I0iaGcRerMUsWOuBmKKKRmVMMdR9T3EZdpqsBd7jZCNMWotjhi
vd5zovQlFqQ2Wjc2+y46vKP/iXxWIuQJuDiisyXF0Y8+5GTpAL
pHDc1/pIGmMIGjoAMCAQGigZsEgZg2on5mSuxoDHEA1w9bcW9n
FdFxDKpdrQhVGVRDIzcCMCTzvUboqb5KjY1NJKJsfjRQiBYBdE
NKfzK+g5DlV8nrw81uOcP8NOQCLR5XkoMHC0Dr/80ziQzbNqhx
O6652Npft0LQwJvenwDI13YxpwOdMXzkWZN/XrEqOWp6GCgXTB
vCyLWLlWnbaUkZdEYbKHBPjd8t/1x5Yg==
S: + YGgGCSqGSIb3EgECAgIAb1kwV6ADAgEFoQMCAQ+iSzBJoAMC
AQGiQgRAtHTEuOP2BXb9sBYFR4SJlDZxmg39IxmRBOhXRKdDA0
uHTCOT9Bq3OsUTXUlk0CsFLoa8j+gvGDlgHuqzWHPSQg==
C:
S: + YDMGCSqGSIb3EgECAgIBAAD/////6jcyG4GE3KkTzBeBiVHe
ceP2CWY0SR0fAQAgAAQEBAQ=
C: YDMGCSqGSIb3EgECAgIBAAD/////3LQBHXTpFfZgrejpLlLImP
wkhbfa2QteAQAgAG1yYwE=
S: A001 OK GSSAPI authentication successful
Note: The line breaks within server challenges and client responses are for editorial clarity and are not in real authenticators.
The LOGIN command identifies the client to the server and carries the plaintext password authenticating this user.
A server MAY include a CAPABILITY response code in the tagged OK response to a successful LOGIN command in order to send capabilities automatically. It is unnecessary for a client to send a separate CAPABILITY command if it recognizes these automatic capabilities.
Example: C: a001 LOGIN SMITH SESAME
S: a001 OK LOGIN completed
Note: Use of the LOGIN command over an insecure network (such as the Internet) is a security risk, because anyone monitoring network traffic can obtain plaintext passwords. The LOGIN command SHOULD NOT be used except as a last resort, and it is recommended that client implementations have a means to disable any automatic use of the LOGIN command.
Unless either the client is accessing IMAP service on IMAPS port [RFC8314], the STARTTLS command has been negotiated or some other mechanism that protects the session from password snooping has been provided, a server implementation MUST implement a configuration in which it advertises the LOGINDISABLED capability and does NOT permit the LOGIN command. Server sites SHOULD NOT use any configuration which permits the LOGIN command without such a protection mechanism against password snooping. A client implementation MUST NOT send a LOGIN command if the LOGINDISABLED capability is advertised.
In the authenticated state, commands that manipulate mailboxes as atomic entities are permitted. Of these commands, the SELECT and EXAMINE commands will select a mailbox for access and enter the selected state.
In addition to the universal commands (CAPABILITY, NOOP, and LOGOUT), the following commands are valid in the authenticated state: ENABLE, SELECT, EXAMINE, NAMESPACE, CREATE, DELETE, RENAME, SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, LIST, STATUS, APPEND and IDLE.
Several IMAP extensions allow the server to return unsolicited responses specific to these extensions in certain circumstances. However, servers cannot send those unsolicited responses (with the exception of response codes (see Section 7.1) included in tagged or untagged OK/NO/BAD responses, which can always be sent) until they know that the clients support such extensions and thus won't choke on the extension response data.
The ENABLE command provides an explicit indication from the client that it supports particular extensions. It is designed such that the client can send a simple constant string with the extensions it supports, and the server will enable the shared subset that both support.
The ENABLE command takes a list of capability names, and requests the server to enable the named extensions. Once enabled using ENABLE, each extension remains active until the IMAP connection is closed. For each argument, the server does the following:
If the ENABLE command is successful, the server MUST send an untagged ENABLED response Section 7.2.1.
Clients SHOULD only include extensions that need to be enabled by the server. For example, a client can enable IMAP4rev2 specific behaviour when both IMAP4rev1 and IMAP4rev2 are advertised in the CAPABILITY response. Future RFCs may add to this list.
The ENABLE command is only valid in the authenticated state, before any mailbox is selected. Clients MUST NOT issue ENABLE once they SELECT/EXAMINE a mailbox; however, server implementations don't have to check that no mailbox is selected or was previously selected during the duration of a connection.
The ENABLE command can be issued multiple times in a session. It is additive; i.e., "ENABLE a b", followed by "ENABLE c" is the same as a single command "ENABLE a b c". When multiple ENABLE commands are issued, each corresponding ENABLED response SHOULD only contain extensions enabled by the corresponding ENABLE command, i.e. for the above example, the ENABLED response to "ENABLE c" should not contain "a" or "b".
There are no limitations on pipelining ENABLE. For example, it is possible to send ENABLE and then immediately SELECT, or a LOGIN immediately followed by ENABLE.
The server MUST NOT change the CAPABILITY list as a result of executing ENABLE; i.e., a CAPABILITY command issued right after an ENABLE command MUST list the same capabilities as a CAPABILITY command issued before the ENABLE command. This is demonstrated in the following example:
C: t1 CAPABILITY
S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev2 ID LITERAL+ X-GOOD-IDEA
S: t1 OK foo
C: t2 ENABLE CONDSTORE X-GOOD-IDEA
S: * ENABLED X-GOOD-IDEA
S: t2 OK foo
C: t3 CAPABILITY
S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev2 ID LITERAL+ X-GOOD-IDEA
S: t3 OK foo again
In the following example, the client enables CONDSTORE:
C: a1 ENABLE CONDSTORE
S: * ENABLED CONDSTORE
S: a1 OK Conditional Store enabled
Designers of IMAP extensions are discouraged from creating extensions that require ENABLE unless there is no good alternative design. Specifically, extensions that cause potentially incompatible behavior changes to deployed server responses (and thus benefit from ENABLE) have a higher complexity cost than extensions that do not.
The SELECT command selects a mailbox so that messages in the mailbox can be accessed. Before returning an OK to the client, the server MUST send the following untagged data to the client. (The order of individual responses is not important.) Note that earlier versions of this protocol only required the FLAGS and EXISTS untagged data; consequently, client implementations SHOULD implement default behavior for missing data as discussed with the individual item.
Only one mailbox can be selected at a time in a connection; simultaneous access to multiple mailboxes requires multiple connections. The SELECT command automatically deselects any currently selected mailbox before attempting the new selection. Consequently, if a mailbox is selected and a SELECT command that fails is attempted, no mailbox is selected. When deselecting a selected mailbox, the server MUST return an untagged OK response with the "[CLOSED]" response code when the currently selected mailbox is closed (see Paragraph 10).
If the client is permitted to modify the mailbox, the server SHOULD prefix the text of the tagged OK response with the "[READ-WRITE]" response code.
If the client is not permitted to modify the mailbox but is permitted read access, the mailbox is selected as read-only, and the server MUST prefix the text of the tagged OK response to SELECT with the "[READ-ONLY]" response code. Read-only access through SELECT differs from the EXAMINE command in that certain read-only mailboxes MAY permit the change of permanent state on a per-user (as opposed to global) basis. Netnews messages marked in a server-based .newsrc file are an example of such per-user permanent state that can be modified with read-only mailboxes.
Example: C: A142 SELECT INBOX
S: * 172 EXISTS
S: * OK [UIDVALIDITY 3857529045] UIDs valid
S: * OK [UIDNEXT 4392] Predicted next UID
S: * FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft)
S: * OK [PERMANENTFLAGS (\Deleted \Seen \*)] Limited
S: A142 OK [READ-WRITE] SELECT completed
Example: C: A142 SELECT INBOX
S: * 172 EXISTS
S: * OK [UIDVALIDITY 3857529045] UIDs valid
S: * OK [UIDNEXT 4392] Predicted next UID
S: * FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft)
S: * OK [PERMANENTFLAGS (\Deleted \Seen \*)] Limited
S: A142 OK [READ-WRITE] SELECT completed
[...some time later...]
C: A143 SELECT Drafts
S: * OK [CLOSED] Previous mailbox is now closed
S: * 5 EXISTS
S: * OK [UIDVALIDITY 9877410381] UIDs valid
S: * OK [UIDNEXT 102] Predicted next UID
S: * FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft)
S: * OK [PERMANENTFLAGS (\Deleted \Seen \Answered
\Flagged \Draft \*)] System flags and keywords allowed
S: A143 OK [READ-WRITE] SELECT completed
Note that IMAP4rev1 compliant servers can also send the untagged RECENT response which was deprecated in IMAP4rev2. E.g. "* 0 RECENT". Pure IMAP4rev2 clients are advised to ignore the untagged RECENT response.
The EXAMINE command is identical to SELECT and returns the same output; however, the selected mailbox is identified as read-only. No changes to the permanent state of the mailbox, including per-user state, are permitted.
The text of the tagged OK response to the EXAMINE command MUST begin with the "[READ-ONLY]" response code.
Example: C: A932 EXAMINE blurdybloop
S: * 17 EXISTS
S: * OK [UIDVALIDITY 3857529045] UIDs valid
S: * OK [UIDNEXT 4392] Predicted next UID
S: * FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft)
S: * OK [PERMANENTFLAGS ()] No permanent flags permitted
S: A932 OK [READ-ONLY] EXAMINE completed
The CREATE command creates a mailbox with the given name. An OK response is returned only if a new mailbox with that name has been created. It is an error to attempt to create INBOX or a mailbox with a name that refers to an extant mailbox. Any error in creation will return a tagged NO response. If a client attempts to create a UTF-8 mailbox name that is not a valid Net-Unicode name, the server MUST reject the creation or convert the name to Net-Unicode prior to creating the mailbox. If the server decides to convert (normalize) the name, it SHOULD return an untagged LIST with OLDNAME extended data item, with the OLDNAME value being the supplied mailbox name and the name parameter being the normalized mailbox name. (See Section 6.3.9.7 for more details.)
Mailboxes created in one IMAP session MAY be announced to other IMAP sessions using unsolicited LIST response. If the server automatically subscribes a mailbox when it is created, then the unsolicited LIST response for each affected subscribed mailbox name MUST include the \Subscribed attribute.
If the mailbox name is suffixed with the server's hierarchy separator character (as returned from the server by a LIST command), this is a declaration that the client intends to create mailbox names under this name in the hierarchy. Server implementations that do not require this declaration MUST ignore the declaration. In any case, the name created is without the trailing hierarchy delimiter.
If the server's hierarchy separator character appears elsewhere in the name, the server SHOULD create any superior hierarchical names that are needed for the CREATE command to be successfully completed. In other words, an attempt to create "foo/bar/zap" on a server in which "/" is the hierarchy separator character SHOULD create foo/ and foo/bar/ if they do not already exist.
If a new mailbox is created with the same name as a mailbox which was deleted, its unique identifiers MUST be greater than any unique identifiers used in the previous incarnation of the mailbox UNLESS the new incarnation has a different unique identifier validity value. See the description of the UID command for more detail.
Example: C: A003 CREATE owatagusiam/
S: A003 OK CREATE completed
C: A004 CREATE owatagusiam/blurdybloop
S: A004 OK CREATE completed
C: A005 CREATE NonNormalized
S: * LIST () "/" "Normalized" ("OLDNAME" ("NonNormalized"))
S: A005 OK CREATE completed
(in the last example imagine that "NonNormalized" is
a non NFC normalized Unicode mailbox name and that
"Normalized" is its NFC normalized version.)
The DELETE command permanently removes the mailbox with the given name. A tagged OK response is returned only if the mailbox has been deleted. It is an error to attempt to delete INBOX or a mailbox name that does not exist.
The DELETE command MUST NOT remove inferior hierarchical names. For example, if a mailbox "foo" has an inferior "foo.bar" (assuming "." is the hierarchy delimiter character), removing "foo" MUST NOT remove "foo.bar". It is an error to attempt to delete a name that has inferior hierarchical names and also has the \Noselect mailbox name attribute (see the description of the LIST response for more details).
It is permitted to delete a name that has inferior hierarchical names and does not have the \Noselect mailbox name attribute. If the server implementation does not permit deleting the name while inferior hierarchical names exists then it SHOULD disallow the DELETE command by returning a tagged NO response. The NO response SHOULD include the HASCHILDREN response code. Alternatively the server MAY allow the DELETE command, but sets the \Noselect mailbox name attribute for that name.
If the server returns OK response, all messages in that mailbox are removed by the DELETE command.
The value of the highest-used unique identifier of the deleted mailbox MUST be preserved so that a new mailbox created with the same name will not reuse the identifiers of the former incarnation, UNLESS the new incarnation has a different unique identifier validity value. See the description of the UID command for more detail.
Mailboxes deleted in one IMAP session MAY be announced to other IMAP sessions using unsolicited LIST response, containing the "\NonExistent" attribute.
Examples: C: A682 LIST "" *
S: * LIST () "/" blurdybloop
S: * LIST (\Noselect) "/" foo
S: * LIST () "/" foo/bar
S: A682 OK LIST completed
C: A683 DELETE blurdybloop
S: A683 OK DELETE completed
C: A684 DELETE foo
S: A684 NO Name "foo" has inferior hierarchical names
C: A685 DELETE foo/bar
S: A685 OK DELETE Completed
C: A686 LIST "" *
S: * LIST (\Noselect) "/" foo
S: A686 OK LIST completed
C: A687 DELETE foo
S: A687 OK DELETE Completed
C: A82 LIST "" *
S: * LIST () "." blurdybloop
S: * LIST () "." foo
S: * LIST () "." foo.bar
S: A82 OK LIST completed
C: A83 DELETE blurdybloop
S: A83 OK DELETE completed
C: A84 DELETE foo
S: A84 OK DELETE Completed
C: A85 LIST "" *
S: * LIST () "." foo.bar
S: A85 OK LIST completed
C: A86 LIST "" %
S: * LIST (\Noselect) "." foo
S: A86 OK LIST completed
The RENAME command changes the name of a mailbox. A tagged OK response is returned only if the mailbox has been renamed. It is an error to attempt to rename from a mailbox name that does not exist or to a mailbox name that already exists. Any error in renaming will return a tagged NO response.
If the name has inferior hierarchical names, then the inferior hierarchical names MUST also be renamed. For example, a rename of "foo" to "zap" will rename "foo/bar" (assuming "/" is the hierarchy delimiter character) to "zap/bar".
If the server's hierarchy separator character appears in the name, the server SHOULD create any superior hierarchical names that are needed for the RENAME command to complete successfully. In other words, an attempt to rename "foo/bar/zap" to baz/rag/zowie on a server in which "/" is the hierarchy separator character in the corresponding namespace SHOULD create baz/ and baz/rag/ if they do not already exist.
The value of the highest-used unique identifier of the old mailbox name MUST be preserved so that a new mailbox created with the same name will not reuse the identifiers of the former incarnation, UNLESS the new incarnation has a different unique identifier validity value. See the description of the UID command for more detail.
Renaming INBOX is permitted, and has special behavior. (Note that some servers disallow renaming INBOX, so clients need to be able to handle such RENAME failing). It moves all messages in INBOX to a new mailbox with the given name, leaving INBOX empty. If the server implementation supports inferior hierarchical names of INBOX, these are unaffected by a rename of INBOX.
If the server allows creation of mailboxes with names that are not valid Net-Unicode names, the server normalizes both the existing mailbox name parameter and the new mailbox name parameter. If the normalized version of any of these 2 parameters differs from the corresponding supplied version, the server SHOULD return an untagged LIST response with OLDNAME extended data item, with the OLDNAME value being the supplied existing mailbox name and the name parameter being the normalized new mailbox name (see Section 6.3.9.7). This would allow the client to correlate supplied name with the normalized name.
Mailboxes renamed in one IMAP session MAY be announced to other IMAP sessions using unsolicited LIST response with OLDNAME extended data item.
In both of the above cases: if the server automatically subscribes a mailbox when it is renamed, then the unsolicited LIST response for each affected subscribed mailbox name MUST include the \Subscribed attribute. No unsolicited LIST responses need to be sent for children mailboxes, if any. When INBOX is successfully renamed, a new INBOX is assumed to be created. No unsolicited LIST responses need to be sent for INBOX in this case.
Examples: C: A682 LIST "" *
S: * LIST () "/" blurdybloop
S: * LIST (\Noselect) "/" foo
S: * LIST () "/" foo/bar
S: A682 OK LIST completed
C: A683 RENAME blurdybloop sarasoop
S: A683 OK RENAME completed
C: A684 RENAME foo zowie
S: A684 OK RENAME Completed
C: A685 LIST "" *
S: * LIST () "/" sarasoop
S: * LIST (\Noselect) "/" zowie
S: * LIST () "/" zowie/bar
S: A685 OK LIST completed
C: Z432 LIST "" *
S: * LIST () "." INBOX
S: * LIST () "." INBOX.bar
S: Z432 OK LIST completed
C: Z433 RENAME INBOX old-mail
S: Z433 OK RENAME completed
C: Z434 LIST "" *
S: * LIST () "." INBOX
S: * LIST () "." INBOX.bar
S: * LIST () "." old-mail
S: Z434 OK LIST completed
Note that renaming a mailbox doesn't update subscription information on the original name. To keep subscription information in sync, the following sequence of commands can be used:
C: 1001 RENAME X Y C: 1002 SUBSCRIBE Y C: 1003 UNSUBSCRIBE X
Note that the above sequence of commands doesn't account for updating subscription for any children mailboxes of mailbox X.
The SUBSCRIBE command adds the specified mailbox name to the server's set of "active" or "subscribed" mailboxes as returned by the LIST (SUBSCRIBED) command. This command returns a tagged OK response if the subscription is successful or if the mailbox is already subscribed.
A server MAY validate the mailbox argument to SUBSCRIBE to verify that it exists. However, it SHOULD NOT unilaterally remove an existing mailbox name from the subscription list even if a mailbox by that name no longer exists.
Example: C: A002 SUBSCRIBE #news.comp.mail.mime
S: A002 OK SUBSCRIBE completed
The UNSUBSCRIBE command removes the specified mailbox name from the server's set of "active" or "subscribed" mailboxes as returned by the LIST (SUBSCRIBED) command. This command returns a tagged OK response if the unsubscription is successful or if the mailbox is not subscribed.
Example: C: A002 UNSUBSCRIBE #news.comp.mail.mime
S: A002 OK UNSUBSCRIBE completed
The LIST command returns a subset of names from the complete set of all names available to the client. Zero or more untagged LIST replies are returned, containing the name attributes, hierarchy delimiter, name, and possible extension information; see the description of the LIST reply for more detail.
The LIST command SHOULD return its data quickly, without undue delay. For example, it SHOULD NOT go to excess trouble to calculate the \Marked or \Unmarked status or perform other processing; if each name requires 1 second of processing, then a list of 1200 names would take 20 minutes!
The extended LIST command, originally introduced in [RFC5258], provides capabilities beyond that of the original IMAP LIST command. The extended syntax is being used if one or more of the following conditions is true:
An empty ("" string) reference name argument indicates that the mailbox name is interpreted as by SELECT. The returned mailbox names MUST match the supplied mailbox name pattern(s). A non-empty reference name argument is the name of a mailbox or a level of mailbox hierarchy, and indicates the context in which the mailbox name is interpreted. Clients SHOULD use the empty reference argument.
In the basic syntax only, an empty ("" string) mailbox name argument is a special request to return the hierarchy delimiter and the root name of the name given in the reference. The value returned as the root MAY be the empty string if the reference is non-rooted or is an empty string. In all cases, a hierarchy delimiter (or NIL if there is no hierarchy) is returned. This permits a client to get the hierarchy delimiter (or find out that the mailbox names are flat) even when no mailboxes by that name currently exist.
In the extended syntax, any mailbox name arguments that are empty strings are ignored. There is no special meaning for empty mailbox names when the extended syntax is used.
The reference and mailbox name arguments are interpreted into a canonical form that represents an unambiguous left-to-right hierarchy. The returned mailbox names will be in the interpreted form, that we call "canonical LIST pattern" later in this document. To define the term "canonical LIST pattern" formally: it refers to the canonical pattern constructed internally by the server from the reference and mailbox name arguments.
For example, here are some examples of how references
and mailbox names might be interpreted on a UNIX-based
server:
Reference Mailbox Name Interpretation
------------ ------------ --------------
~smith/Mail/ foo.* ~smith/Mail/foo.*
archive/ % archive/%
#news. comp.mail.* #news.comp.mail.*
~smith/Mail/ /usr/doc/foo /usr/doc/foo
archive/ ~fred/Mail/* ~fred/Mail/*
The first three examples demonstrate interpretations in
the context of the reference argument. Note that
"~smith/Mail" SHOULD NOT be transformed into something
like "/u2/users/smith/Mail", or it would be impossible
for the client to determine that the interpretation was
in the context of the reference.
Any part of the reference argument that is included in the interpreted form SHOULD prefix the interpreted form. It SHOULD also be in the same form as the reference name argument. This rule permits the client to determine if the returned mailbox name is in the context of the reference argument, or if something about the mailbox argument overrode the reference argument. Without this rule, the client would have to have knowledge of the server's naming semantics including what characters are "breakouts" that override a naming context.
The character "*" is a wildcard, and matches zero or more characters at this position. The character "%" is similar to "*", but it does not match a hierarchy delimiter. If the "%" wildcard is the last character of a mailbox name argument, matching levels of hierarchy are also returned. If these levels of hierarchy are not also selectable mailboxes, they are returned with the \Noselect mailbox name attribute (see the description of the LIST response for more details).
Any syntactically valid pattern that is not accepted by a server for any reason MUST be silently ignored. I.e. it results in no LIST responses and the LIST command still returns tagged OK response.
Selection options tell the server to limit the mailbox names that are selected by the LIST operation. If selection options are used, the mailboxes returned are those that match both the list of canonical LIST patterns and the selection options. Unless a particular selection option provides special rules, the selection options are cumulative: a mailbox that matches the mailbox patterns is selected only if it also matches all of the selection options. (An example of a selection option with special rules is the RECURSIVEMATCH option.)
Return options control what information is returned for each matched mailbox. Return options MUST NOT cause the server to report information about additional mailbox names other than those that match the canonical LIST patterns and selection options. If no return options are specified, the client is only expecting information about mailbox attributes. The server MAY return other information about the matched mailboxes, and clients MUST be able to handle that situation.
Initial selection options and return options are defined in the following subsections, and new ones will also be defined in extensions. Initial options defined in this document MUST be supported. Each non-initial option will be enabled by a capability string (one capability may enable multiple options), and a client MUST NOT send an option for which the server has not advertised support. A server MUST respond to options it does not recognize with a BAD response. The client SHOULD NOT specify any option more than once; however, if the client does this, the server MUST act as if it received the option only once. The order in which options are specified by the client is not significant.
In general, each selection option except RECURSIVEMATCH will have a corresponding return option with the same name. The REMOTE selection option is an anomaly in this regard, and does not have a corresponding return option. That is because it expands, rather than restricts, the set of mailboxes that are returned. Future extensions to this specification should keep this parallelism in mind and define a pair of corresponding selection and return options.
Server implementations are permitted to "hide" otherwise accessible mailboxes from the wildcard characters, by preventing certain characters or names from matching a wildcard in certain situations. For example, a UNIX-based server might restrict the interpretation of "*" so that an initial "/" character does not match.
The special name INBOX is included in the output from LIST, if INBOX is supported by this server for this user and if the uppercase string "INBOX" matches the interpreted reference and mailbox name arguments with wildcards as described above. The criteria for omitting INBOX is whether SELECT INBOX will return failure; it is not relevant whether the user's real INBOX resides on this or some other server.
The selection options defined in this specification are as follows:
The return options defined in this specification are as follows:
This section outlines several principles that can be used by server implementations of this document to decide whether a LIST response should be returned, as well as how many responses and what kind of information they may contain.
means that the "Fruit/Peach" mailbox doesn't exist, but it is subscribed.
All clients MUST treat a LIST attribute with a stronger meaning as implying any attribute that can be inferred from it. (See Section 7.2.3 for the list of currently defined attributes). For example, the client must treat the presence of the \NoInferiors attribute as if the \HasNoChildren attribute was also sent by the server.
The following table summarizes inference rules.
| returned attribute | implied attribute |
|---|---|
| \NoInferiors | \HasNoChildren |
| \NonExistent | \NoSelect |
The CHILDREN return option is simply an indication that the client wants information about whether or not mailboxes contain children mailboxes; a server MAY provide it even if the option is not specified.
Many IMAP4 clients present to the user a hierarchical view of the mailboxes that a user has access to. Rather than initially presenting to the user the entire mailbox hierarchy, it is often preferable to show to the user a collapsed outline list of the mailbox hierarchy (particularly if there is a large number of mailboxes). The user can then expand the collapsed outline hierarchy as needed. It is common to include within the collapsed hierarchy a visual clue (such as a ''+'') to indicate that there are child mailboxes under a particular mailbox. When the visual clue is clicked, the hierarchy list is expanded to show the child mailboxes. The CHILDREN return option provides a mechanism for a client to efficiently determine whether a particular mailbox has children, without issuing a LIST "" * or a LIST "" % for each mailbox name. The CHILDREN return option defines two new attributes that MUST be returned within a LIST response: \HasChildren and \HasNoChildren. Although these attributes MAY be returned in response to any LIST command, the CHILDREN return option is provided to indicate that the client particularly wants this information. If the CHILDREN return option is present, the server MUST return these attributes even if their computation is expensive.
\HasChildren
\HasNoChildren
It is an error for the server to return both a \HasChildren and a \HasNoChildren attribute in the same LIST response.
Note: the \HasNoChildren attribute should not be confused with the the \NoInferiors attribute, which indicates that no child mailboxes exist now and none can be created in the future.
The CHILDINFO extended data item MUST NOT be returned unless the client has specified the RECURSIVEMATCH selection option.
The CHILDINFO extended data item in a LIST response describes the selection criteria that has caused it to be returned and indicates that the mailbox has at least one descendant mailbox that matches the selection criteria.
Note: Some servers allow for mailboxes to exist without requiring their parent to exist. For example, a mailbox "Customers/ABC" can exist while the mailbox "Customers" does not. As CHILDINFO extended data item is not allowed if the RECURSIVEMATCH selection option is not specified, such servers SHOULD use the "\NonExistent \HasChildren" attribute pair to signal to the client that there is a descendant mailbox that matches the selection criteria. See example 11 in Section 6.3.9.8.
The returned selection criteria allow the client to distinguish a solicited response from an unsolicited one, as well as to distinguish among solicited responses caused by multiple pipelined LIST commands that specify different criteria.
Servers SHOULD ONLY return a non-matching mailbox name along with CHILDINFO if at least one matching child is not also being returned. That is, servers SHOULD suppress redundant CHILDINFO responses.
Examples 8 and 10 in Section 6.3.9.8 demonstrate the difference between present CHILDINFO extended data item and the "\HasChildren" attribute.
The following table summarizes interaction between the "\NonExistent" attribute and CHILDINFO (the first column indicates whether the parent mailbox exists):
| exists | meets the selection criteria | has a child that meets the selection criteria | returned IMAP4rev2/LIST-EXTENDED attributes and CHILDINFO |
|---|---|---|---|
| no | no | no | no LIST response returned |
| yes | no | no | no LIST response returned |
| no | yes | no | (\NonExistent <attr>) |
| yes | yes | no | (<attr>) |
| no | no | yes | (\NonExistent) + CHILDINFO |
| yes | no | yes | () + CHILDINFO |
| no | yes | yes | (\NonExistent <attr>) + CHILDINFO |
| yes | yes | yes | (<attr>) + CHILDINFO |
where <attr> is one or more attributes that correspond to the selection criteria; for example, for the SUBSCRIBED option the <attr> is \Subscribed.
The OLDNAME extended data item is included when a mailbox name is created (with CREATE command), renamed (with RENAME command) or deleted (with DELETE command). (When a mailbox is deleted the "\NonExistent" attribute is also included.) IMAP extensions can specify other conditions when OLDNAME extended data item should be included.
If the server allows de-normalized mailbox names (see Section 5.1) in SELECT/EXAMINE, CREATE, RENAME or DELETE, it SHOULD return an unsolicited LIST response that includes OLDNAME extended data item, whenever the supplied mailbox name differs from the resulting normalized mailbox name. From the client point of view this is indistinguishable from another user renaming of deleting the mailbox, as specified in the previous paragraph.
A deleted mailbox can be announced like this:
S: * LIST (\NonExistent) "." "INBOX.DeletedMailbox"
Example of a renamed mailbox:
S: * LIST () "/" "NewMailbox" ("OLDNAME" ("OldMailbox"))
Example: C: A101 LIST "" ""
S: * LIST (\Noselect) "/" ""
S: A101 OK LIST Completed
C: A102 LIST #news.comp.mail.misc ""
S: * LIST (\Noselect) "." #news.
S: A102 OK LIST Completed
C: A103 LIST /usr/staff/jones ""
S: * LIST (\Noselect) "/" /
S: A103 OK LIST Completed
C: A202 LIST ~/Mail/ %
S: * LIST (\Noselect) "/" ~/Mail/foo
S: * LIST () "/" ~/Mail/meetings
S: A202 OK LIST completed
This example shows some uses of the basic LIST command:
C: A01 LIST "" "*"
S: * LIST (\Marked \NoInferiors) "/" "inbox"
S: * LIST () "/" "Fruit"
S: * LIST () "/" "Fruit/Apple"
S: * LIST () "/" "Fruit/Banana"
S: * LIST () "/" "Tofu"
S: * LIST () "/" "Vegetable"
S: * LIST () "/" "Vegetable/Broccoli"
S: * LIST () "/" "Vegetable/Corn"
S: A01 OK done
C: A02 LIST (SUBSCRIBED) "" "*"
S: * LIST (\Marked \NoInferiors \Subscribed) "/" "inbox"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "Fruit/Banana"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed \NonExistent) "/" "Fruit/Peach"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "Vegetable"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "Vegetable/Broccoli"
S: A02 OK done
C: A03 LIST () "" "%" RETURN (CHILDREN)
S: * LIST (\Marked \NoInferiors) "/" "inbox"
S: * LIST (\HasChildren) "/" "Fruit"
S: * LIST (\HasNoChildren) "/" "Tofu"
S: * LIST (\HasChildren) "/" "Vegetable"
S: A03 OK done
C: A04 LIST (REMOTE) "" "%" RETURN (CHILDREN)
S: * LIST (\Marked \NoInferiors) "/" "inbox"
S: * LIST (\HasChildren) "/" "Fruit"
S: * LIST (\HasNoChildren) "/" "Tofu"
S: * LIST (\HasChildren) "/" "Vegetable"
S: * LIST (\Remote) "/" "Bread"
S: * LIST (\HasChildren \Remote) "/" "Meat"
S: A04 OK done
C: A05 LIST (REMOTE SUBSCRIBED) "" "*"
S: * LIST (\Marked \NoInferiors \Subscribed) "/" "inbox"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "Fruit/Banana"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed \NonExistent) "/" "Fruit/Peach"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "Vegetable"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "Vegetable/Broccoli"
S: * LIST (\Remote \Subscribed) "/" "Bread"
S: A05 OK done
C: A06 LIST (REMOTE) "" "*" RETURN (SUBSCRIBED)
S: * LIST (\Marked \NoInferiors \Subscribed) "/" "inbox"
S: * LIST () "/" "Fruit"
S: * LIST () "/" "Fruit/Apple"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "Fruit/Banana"
S: * LIST () "/" "Tofu"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "Vegetable"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "Vegetable/Broccoli"
S: * LIST () "/" "Vegetable/Corn"
S: * LIST (\Remote \Subscribed) "/" "Bread"
S: * LIST (\Remote) "/" "Meat"
S: A06 OK done
C: C01 LIST "" "*"
S: * LIST (\Marked \NoInferiors) "/" "inbox"
S: * LIST () "/" "Foo"
S: * LIST () "/" "Foo/Bar"
S: * LIST () "/" "Foo/Baz"
S: * LIST () "/" "Moo"
S: C01 OK done
C: CA3 LIST "" "%" RETURN (CHILDREN)
S: * LIST (\Marked \NoInferiors) "/" "inbox"
S: * LIST (\HasChildren) "/" "Foo"
S: * LIST (\HasNoChildren) "/" "Moo"
S: CA3 OK done
C: C02 LIST (SUBSCRIBED) "" "*"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "Foo/Baz"
S: C02 OK done
C: C04 LIST (SUBSCRIBED RECURSIVEMATCH) "" "%"
S: * LIST () "/" "Foo" ("CHILDINFO" ("SUBSCRIBED"))
S: C04 OK done
C: C04 LIST (SUBSCRIBED RECURSIVEMATCH) "" "%"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "Foo" ("CHILDINFO" ("SUBSCRIBED"))
S: C04 OK done
C: C04 LIST (SUBSCRIBED RECURSIVEMATCH) "" "%"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed \HasChildren) "/" "Foo" ("CHILDINFO"
("SUBSCRIBED"))
S: C04 OK done
C: C04 LIST (SUBSCRIBED RECURSIVEMATCH) "" "%"
S: * LIST (\NonExistent) "/" "Foo" ("CHILDINFO" ("SUBSCRIBED"))
S: C04 OK done
C: C04 LIST (SUBSCRIBED RECURSIVEMATCH) "" "%" RETURN (CHILDREN)
S: * LIST (\HasChildren \Subscribed) "/" "Foo"
S: * LIST (\HasNoChildren \Subscribed) "/" "Moo"
S: C04 OK done
C: D01 LIST "" "*"
S: * LIST (\Marked \NoInferiors) "/" "inbox"
S: * LIST () "/" "foo2"
S: * LIST () "/" "foo2/bar1"
S: * LIST () "/" "foo2/bar2"
S: * LIST () "/" "baz2"
S: * LIST () "/" "baz2/bar2"
S: * LIST () "/" "baz2/bar22"
S: * LIST () "/" "baz2/bar222"
S: * LIST () "/" "eps2"
S: * LIST () "/" "eps2/mamba"
S: * LIST () "/" "qux2/bar2"
S: D01 OK done
C: D02 LIST (SUBSCRIBED) "" "*"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "foo2/bar1"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "foo2/bar2"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "baz2/bar2"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "baz2/bar22"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "baz2/bar222"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "eps2"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "eps2/mamba"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "qux2/bar2"
S: D02 OK done
C: D03 LIST (RECURSIVEMATCH SUBSCRIBED) "" "*2"
S: * LIST () "/" "foo2" ("CHILDINFO" ("SUBSCRIBED"))
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "foo2/bar2"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "baz2/bar2"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "baz2/bar22"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "baz2/bar222"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "eps2" ("CHILDINFO" ("SUBSCRIBED"))
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "qux2/bar2"
S: D03 OK done
S: * LIST () "/" "baz2" ("CHILDINFO" ("SUBSCRIBED"))
S: * LIST (\NonExistent) "/" "qux2" ("CHILDINFO" ("SUBSCRIBED"))
C: D03 LIST (RECURSIVEMATCH SUBSCRIBED) "" "*"
S: * LIST () "/" "foo2" ("CHILDINFO" ("SUBSCRIBED"))
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "foo2/bar1"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "foo2/bar2"
S: * LIST () "/" "baz2" ("CHILDINFO" ("SUBSCRIBED"))
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "baz2/bar2"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "baz2/bar22"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "baz2/bar222"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "eps2" ("CHILDINFO" ("SUBSCRIBED"))
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "eps2/mamba"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "/" "qux2/bar2"
S: D03 OK done
C: a1 LIST "" ("foo")
S: * LIST () "/" foo
S: a1 OK done
C: a2 LIST (SUBSCRIBED) "" "foo/*"
S: * LIST (\Subscribed \NonExistent) "/" foo/bar
S: a2 OK done
C: a3 LIST (SUBSCRIBED RECURSIVEMATCH) "" foo RETURN (CHILDREN)
S: * LIST (\HasNoChildren) "/" foo ("CHILDINFO" ("SUBSCRIBED"))
S: a3 OK done
C: a1 LIST (REMOTE) "" *
S: * LIST () "/" music/rock
S: * LIST (\Remote) "/" also/jazz
S: a1 OK done
C: a2 LIST () "" %
S: * LIST (\NonExistent \HasChildren) "/" music
S: a2 OK done
C: a3 LIST (REMOTE) "" %
S: * LIST (\NonExistent \HasChildren) "/" music
S: * LIST (\NonExistent \HasChildren) "/" also
S: a3 OK done
C: a3.1 LIST "" (% music/rock)
S: * LIST () "/" music/rock
S: a3.1 OK done
C: A01 LIST "" % RETURN (STATUS (MESSAGES UNSEEN))
S: * LIST () "." "INBOX"
S: * STATUS "INBOX" (MESSAGES 17 UNSEEN 16)
S: * LIST () "." "foo"
S: * STATUS "foo" (MESSAGES 30 UNSEEN 29)
S: * LIST (\NoSelect) "." "bar"
S: A01 OK List completed.
C: A02 LIST (SUBSCRIBED RECURSIVEMATCH) "" % RETURN (STATUS
(MESSAGES))
S: * LIST (\Subscribed) "." "INBOX"
S: * STATUS "INBOX" (MESSAGES 17)
S: * LIST () "." "foo" (CHILDINFO ("SUBSCRIBED"))
S: A02 OK List completed.
Extended examples:
The NAMESPACE command causes a single ungagged NAMESPACE response to be returned. The untagged NAMESPACE response contains the prefix and hierarchy delimiter to the server's Personal Namespace(s), Other Users' Namespace(s), and Shared Namespace(s) that the server wishes to expose. The response will contain a NIL for any namespace class that is not available. The Namespace-Response-Extensions ABNF non terminal is defined for extensibility and MAY be included in the NAMESPACE response.
Example 1:
In this example a server supports a single personal namespace. No leading prefix is used on personal mailboxes and "/" is the hierarchy delimiter.
C: A001 NAMESPACE
S: * NAMESPACE (("" "/")) NIL NIL
S: A001 OK NAMESPACE command completed
Example 2:
A user logged on anonymously to a server. No personal mailboxes are associated with the anonymous user and the user does not have access to the Other Users' Namespace. No prefix is required to access shared mailboxes and the hierarchy delimiter is "."
C: A001 NAMESPACE
S: * NAMESPACE NIL NIL (("" "."))
S: A001 OK NAMESPACE command completed
Example 3:
A server that contains a Personal Namespace and a single Shared Namespace.
C: A001 NAMESPACE
S: * NAMESPACE (("" "/")) NIL (("Public Folders/" "/"))
S: A001 OK NAMESPACE command completed
Example 4:
A server that contains a Personal Namespace, Other Users' Namespace and multiple Shared Namespaces. Note that the hierarchy delimiter used within each namespace can be different.
C: A001 NAMESPACE
S: * NAMESPACE (("" "/")) (("~" "/")) (("#shared/" "/")
("#public/" "/")("#ftp/" "/")("#news." "."))
S: A001 OK NAMESPACE command completed
The prefix string allows a client to do things such as automatically creating personal mailboxes or LISTing all available mailboxes within a namespace.
Example 5:
A server that supports only the Personal Namespace, with a leading prefix of INBOX to personal mailboxes and a hierarchy delimiter of "."
C: A001 NAMESPACE
S: * NAMESPACE (("INBOX." ".")) NIL NIL
S: A001 OK NAMESPACE command completed
< Automatically create a mailbox to store sent items.>
C: A002 CREATE "INBOX.Sent Mail"
S: A002 OK CREATE command completed
Although typically a server will support only a single Personal Namespace, and a single Other User's Namespace, circumstances exist where there MAY be multiples of these, and a client MUST be prepared for them. If a client is configured such that it is required to create a certain mailbox, there can be circumstances where it is unclear which Personal Namespaces it should create the mailbox in. In these situations a client SHOULD let the user select which namespaces to create the mailbox in or just use the first personal namespace.
Example 6:
In this example, a server supports 2 Personal Namespaces. In addition to the regular Personal Namespace, the user has an additional personal namespace to allow access to mailboxes in an MH format mailstore.
The client is configured to save a copy of all mail sent by the user into a mailbox called 'Sent Mail'. Furthermore, after a message is deleted from a mailbox, the client is configured to move that message to a mailbox called 'Deleted Items'.
Note that this example demonstrates how some extension flags can be passed to further describe the #mh namespace.
C: A001 NAMESPACE
S: * NAMESPACE (("" "/")("#mh/" "/" "X-PARAM"
("FLAG1" "FLAG2"))) NIL NIL
S: A001 OK NAMESPACE command completed
< It is desired to keep only one copy of sent mail.
It is unclear which Personal Namespace the client
should use to create the 'Sent Mail' mailbox.
The user is prompted to select a namespace and only
one 'Sent Mail' mailbox is created. >
C: A002 CREATE "Sent Mail"
S: A002 OK CREATE command completed
< The client is designed so that it keeps two
'Deleted Items' mailboxes, one for each namespace. >
C: A003 CREATE "Delete Items"
S: A003 OK CREATE command completed
C: A004 CREATE "#mh/Deleted Items"
S: A004 OK CREATE command completed
The next level of hierarchy following the Other Users' Namespace prefix SHOULD consist of <username>, where <username> is a user name as per the LOGIN or AUTHENTICATE command.
A client can construct a LIST command by appending a "%" to the Other Users' Namespace prefix to discover the Personal Namespaces of other users that are available to the currently authenticated user.
In response to such a LIST command, a server SHOULD NOT return user names that have not granted access to their personal mailboxes to the user in question.
A server MAY return a LIST response containing only the names of users that have explicitly granted access to the user in question.
Alternatively, a server MAY return NO to such a LIST command, requiring that a user name be included with the Other Users' Namespace prefix before listing any other user's mailboxes.
Example 7:
A server that supports providing a list of other user's mailboxes that are accessible to the currently logged on user.
C: A001 NAMESPACE
S: * NAMESPACE (("" "/")) (("Other Users/" "/")) NIL
S: A001 OK NAMESPACE command completed
C: A002 LIST "" "Other Users/%"
S: * LIST () "/" "Other Users/Mike"
S: * LIST () "/" "Other Users/Karen"
S: * LIST () "/" "Other Users/Matthew"
S: * LIST () "/" "Other Users/Tesa"
S: A002 OK LIST command completed
Example 8:
A server that does not support providing a list of other user's mailboxes that are accessible to the currently logged on user. The mailboxes are listable if the client includes the name of the other user with the Other Users' Namespace prefix.
C: A001 NAMESPACE
S: * NAMESPACE (("" "/")) (("#Users/" "/")) NIL
S: A001 OK NAMESPACE command completed
< In this example, the currently logged on user has access to
the Personal Namespace of user Mike, but the server chose to
suppress this information in the LIST response. However,
by appending the user name Mike (received through user input)
to the Other Users' Namespace prefix, the client is able
to get a listing of the personal mailboxes of user Mike. >
C: A002 LIST "" "#Users/%"
S: A002 NO The requested item could not be found.
C: A003 LIST "" "#Users/Mike/%"
S: * LIST () "/" "#Users/Mike/INBOX"
S: * LIST () "/" "#Users/Mike/Foo"
S: A003 OK LIST command completed.
A prefix string might not contain a hierarchy delimiter, because in some cases it is not needed as part of the prefix.
Example 9:
A server that allows access to the Other Users' Namespace by prefixing the others' mailboxes with a '~' followed by <username>, where <username> is a user name as per the LOGIN or AUTHENTICATE command.
C: A001 NAMESPACE
S: * NAMESPACE (("" "/")) (("~" "/")) NIL
S: A001 OK NAMESPACE command completed
< List the mailboxes for user mark >
C: A002 LIST "" "~mark/%"
S: * LIST () "/" "~mark/INBOX"
S: * LIST () "/" "~mark/foo"
S: A002 OK LIST command completed
The STATUS command requests the status of the indicated mailbox. It does not change the currently selected mailbox, nor does it affect the state of any messages in the queried mailbox.
The STATUS command provides an alternative to opening a second IMAP4rev2 connection and doing an EXAMINE command on a mailbox to query that mailbox's status without deselecting the current mailbox in the first IMAP4rev2 connection.
Unlike the LIST command, the STATUS command is not guaranteed to be fast in its response. Under certain circumstances, it can be quite slow. In some implementations, the server is obliged to open the mailbox read-only internally to obtain certain status information. Also unlike the LIST command, the STATUS command does not accept wildcards.
The currently defined status data items that can be requested are:
Example: C: A042 STATUS blurdybloop (UIDNEXT MESSAGES)
S: * STATUS blurdybloop (MESSAGES 231 UIDNEXT 44292)
S: A042 OK STATUS completed
The APPEND command appends the literal argument as a new message to the end of the specified destination mailbox. This argument SHOULD be in the format of an [RFC-5322] or [I18N-HDRS] message. 8-bit characters are permitted in the message. A server implementation that is unable to preserve 8-bit data properly MUST be able to reversibly convert 8-bit APPEND data to 7-bit using a [MIME-IMB] content transfer encoding.
If a flag parenthesized list is specified, the flags SHOULD be set in the resulting message; otherwise, the flag list of the resulting message is set to empty by default.
If a date-time is specified, the internal date SHOULD be set in the resulting message; otherwise, the internal date of the resulting message is set to the current date and time by default.
If the append is unsuccessful for any reason, the mailbox MUST be restored to its state before the APPEND attempt (other than possibly keeping the changed mailbox's UIDNEXT value); no partial appending is permitted.
If the destination mailbox does not exist, a server MUST return an error, and MUST NOT automatically create the mailbox. Unless it is certain that the destination mailbox can not be created, the server MUST send the response code "[TRYCREATE]" as the prefix of the text of the tagged NO response. This gives a hint to the client that it can attempt a CREATE command and retry the APPEND if the CREATE is successful.
On successful completion of an APPEND, the server SHOULD return an APPENDUID response code.
In the case of a mailbox that has permissions set so that the client can APPEND to the mailbox, but not SELECT or EXAMINE it, the server SHOULD NOT send an APPENDUID response code as it would disclose information about the mailbox.
In the case of a mailbox that has UIDNOTSTICKY status (see UIDNOTSTICKY response code definition), the server MAY omit the APPENDUID response code as it is not meaningful.
If the server does not return the APPENDUID response codes, the client can discover this information by selecting the destination mailbox. The location of messages placed in the destination mailbox by APPEND can be determined by using FETCH and/or SEARCH commands (e.g., for Message-ID or some unique marker placed in the message in an APPEND).
If the mailbox is currently selected, the normal new message actions SHOULD occur. Specifically, the server SHOULD notify the client immediately via an untagged EXISTS response. If the server does not do so, the client MAY issue a NOOP command after one or more APPEND commands.
Example: C: A003 APPEND saved-messages (\Seen) {310}
S: + Ready for literal data
C: Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 21:52:25 -0800 (PST)
C: From: Fred Foobar <foobar@Blurdybloop.COM>
C: Subject: afternoon meeting
C: To: mooch@owatagu.siam.edu
C: Message-Id: <B27397-0100000@Blurdybloop.COM>
C: MIME-Version: 1.0
C: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
C:
C: Hello Joe, do you think we can meet at 3:30 tomorrow?
C:
S: A003 OK APPEND completed
Example: C: A003 APPEND saved-messages (\Seen) {297}
C: Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 21:52:25 -0800 (PST)
C: From: Fred Foobar <foobar@example.com>
C: Subject: afternoon meeting
C: To: mooch@example.com
C: Message-Id: <B27397-0100000@example.com>
C: MIME-Version: 1.0
C: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
C:
C: Hello Joe, do you think we can meet at 3:30 tomorrow?
C:
S: A003 OK [APPENDUID 38505 3955] APPEND completed
C: A004 COPY 2:4 meeting
S: A004 OK [COPYUID 38505 304,319:320 3956:3958] Done
C: A005 UID COPY 305:310 meeting
S: A005 OK No matching messages, so nothing copied
C: A006 COPY 2 funny
S: A006 OK Done
C: A007 SELECT funny
S: * 1 EXISTS
S: * OK [UIDVALIDITY 3857529045] Validity session-only
S: * OK [UIDNEXT 2] Predicted next UID
S: * NO [UIDNOTSTICKY] Non-persistent UIDs
S: * FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft)
S: * OK [PERMANENTFLAGS (\Deleted \Seen)] Limited
S: A007 OK [READ-WRITE] SELECT completed
In this example, A003 and A004 demonstrate successful appending and copying to a mailbox that returns the UIDs assigned to the messages. A005 is an example in which no messages were copied; this is because in A003, we see that message 2 had UID 304, and message 3 had UID 319; therefore, UIDs 305 through 310 do not exist (refer to Section 2.3.1.1 for further explanation). A006 is an example of a message being copied that did not return a COPYUID; and, as expected, A007 shows that the mail store containing that mailbox does not support persistent UIDs.
Without the IDLE command a client requires to poll the server for changes to the selected mailbox (new mail, deletions, flag changes). It's often more desirable to have the server transmit updates to the client in real time. This allows a user to see new mail immediately. The IDLE command allows a client to tell the server that it's ready to accept such real-time updates.
The IDLE command is sent from the client to the server when the client is ready to accept unsolicited update messages. The server requests a response to the IDLE command using the continuation ("+") response. The IDLE command remains active until the client responds to the continuation, and as long as an IDLE command is active, the server is now free to send untagged EXISTS, EXPUNGE, FETCH, and other responses at any time. If the server choose to send unsolicited FETCH responses, they MUST include UID FETCH item.
The IDLE command is terminated by the receipt of a "DONE" continuation from the client; such response satisfies the server's continuation request. At that point, the server MAY send any remaining queued untagged responses and then MUST immediately send the tagged response to the IDLE command and prepare to process other commands. As for other commands, the processing of any new command may cause the sending of unsolicited untagged responses, subject to the ambiguity limitations. The client MUST NOT send a command while the server is waiting for the DONE, since the server will not be able to distinguish a command from a continuation.
The server MAY consider a client inactive if it has an IDLE command running, and if such a server has an inactivity timeout it MAY log the client off implicitly at the end of its timeout period. Because of that, clients using IDLE are advised to terminate the IDLE and re-issue it at least every 29 minutes to avoid being logged off. This still allows a client to receive immediate mailbox updates even though it need only "poll" at half hour intervals.
Example: C: A001 SELECT INBOX
S: * FLAGS (\Deleted \Seen \Flagged)
S: * OK [PERMANENTFLAGS (\Deleted \Seen \Flagged)] Limited
S: * 3 EXISTS
S: * OK [UIDVALIDITY 1]
S: A001 OK [READ-WRITE] SELECT completed
C: A002 IDLE
S: + idling
...time passes; new mail arrives...
S: * 4 EXISTS
C: DONE
S: A002 OK IDLE terminated
...another client expunges message 2 now...
C: A003 FETCH 4 ALL
S: * 4 FETCH (...)
S: A003 OK FETCH completed
C: A004 IDLE
S: * 2 EXPUNGE
S: * 3 EXISTS
S: + idling
...time passes; another client expunges message 3...
S: * 3 EXPUNGE
S: * 2 EXISTS
...time passes; new mail arrives...
S: * 3 EXISTS
C: DONE
S: A004 OK IDLE terminated
C: A005 FETCH 3 ALL
S: * 3 FETCH (...)
S: A005 OK FETCH completed
C: A006 IDLE
In the selected state, commands that manipulate messages in a mailbox are permitted.
In addition to the universal commands (CAPABILITY, NOOP, and LOGOUT), and the authenticated state commands (SELECT, EXAMINE, NAMESPACE, CREATE, DELETE, RENAME, SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, LIST, STATUS, and APPEND), the following commands are valid in the selected state: CLOSE, UNSELECT, EXPUNGE, SEARCH, FETCH, STORE, COPY, MOVE, and UID.
The CLOSE command permanently removes all messages that have the \Deleted flag set from the currently selected mailbox, and returns to the authenticated state from the selected state. No untagged EXPUNGE responses are sent.
No messages are removed, and no error is given, if the mailbox is selected by an EXAMINE command or is otherwise selected read-only.
Even if a mailbox is selected, a SELECT, EXAMINE, or LOGOUT command MAY be issued without previously issuing a CLOSE command. The SELECT, EXAMINE, and LOGOUT commands implicitly close the currently selected mailbox without doing an expunge. However, when many messages are deleted, a CLOSE-LOGOUT or CLOSE-SELECT sequence is considerably faster than an EXPUNGE-LOGOUT or EXPUNGE-SELECT because no untagged EXPUNGE responses (which the client would probably ignore) are sent.
Example: C: A341 CLOSE
S: A341 OK CLOSE completed
The UNSELECT command frees server's resources associated with the selected mailbox and returns the server to the authenticated state. This command performs the same actions as CLOSE, except that no messages are permanently removed from the currently selected mailbox.
Example: C: A342 UNSELECT
S: A342 OK Unselect completed
The EXPUNGE command permanently removes all messages that have the \Deleted flag set from the currently selected mailbox. Before returning an OK to the client, an untagged EXPUNGE response is sent for each message that is removed.
Example: C: A202 EXPUNGE
S: * 3 EXPUNGE
S: * 3 EXPUNGE
S: * 5 EXPUNGE
S: * 8 EXPUNGE
S: A202 OK EXPUNGE completed
Note: In this example, messages 3, 4, 7, and 11 had the \Deleted flag set. See the description of the EXPUNGE response for further explanation.
The SEARCH command searches the mailbox for messages that match the given searching criteria.
The SEARCH command may contain result options. Result options control what kind of information is returned about messages matching the search criteria in an untagged ESEARCH response. If no result option is specified or empty list of options is specified "()", ALL is assumed (see below). The order of individual options is arbitrary. Individual options may contain parameters enclosed in parentheses (*). If an option has parameters, they consist of atoms and/or strings and/or lists in a specific order. Any options not defined by extensions that the server supports must be rejected with a BAD response.
(*) - if an option has a mandatory parameter, which can always be represented as a number or a sequence-set, the option parameter does not need the enclosing (). See the ABNF for more details.
This document specifies the following result options:
Note: future extensions to this document can allow servers to return multiple ESEARCH responses for a single extended SEARCH command. However all options specified above MUST result in a single ESEARCH response. These extensions will have to describe how results from multiple ESEARCH responses are to be amalgamated.
Searching criteria consist of one or more search keys.
When multiple keys are specified, the result is the intersection (AND function) of all the messages that match those keys. For example, the criteria DELETED FROM "SMITH" SINCE 1-Feb-1994 refers to all deleted messages from Smith with INTERNALDATE greater than February 1, 1994. A search key can also be a parenthesized list of one or more search keys (e.g., for use with the OR and NOT keys).
Server implementations MAY exclude [MIME-IMB] body parts with terminal content media types other than TEXT and MESSAGE from consideration in SEARCH matching.
The OPTIONAL [CHARSET] specification consists of the word "CHARSET" followed by a registered [CHARSET] [CHARSET-REG]. It indicates the [CHARSET] of the strings that appear in the search criteria. [MIME-IMB] content transfer encodings, and [MIME-HDRS] strings in [RFC-5322]/[MIME-IMB] headers, MUST be decoded before comparing text. Servers MUST support US-ASCII and UTF-8 charsets; other [CHARSET]s MAY be supported. Clients SHOULD use UTF-8. Note that if "CHARSET" is not provided IMAP4rev2 server MUST assume UTF-8, so selecting CHARSET UTF-8 is redundant. It is permitted for improved compatibility with existing IMAP4rev1 clients.
If the server does not support the specified [CHARSET], it MUST return a tagged NO response (not a BAD). This response SHOULD contain the BADCHARSET response code, which MAY list the [CHARSET]s supported by the server.
In all search keys that use strings and unless specified otherwise, a message matches the key if the string is a substring of the associated text. The matching SHOULD be case-insensitive for characters within ASCII range. Consider using [IMAP-I18N] for language-sensitive case-insensitive searching. Note that the empty string is a substring; this is useful when doing a HEADER search in order to test for a header field presence in the message.
The defined search keys are as follows. Refer to the Formal Syntax section for the precise syntactic definitions of the arguments.
Example: C: A282 SEARCH RETURN (MIN COUNT) FLAGGED
SINCE 1-Feb-1994 NOT FROM "Smith"
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "A282") MIN 2 COUNT 3
S: A282 OK SEARCH completed
Example: C: A283 SEARCH RETURN () FLAGGED
SINCE 1-Feb-1994 NOT FROM "Smith"
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "A283") ALL 2,10:11
S: A283 OK SEARCH completed
Example: C: A284 SEARCH TEXT "string not in mailbox"
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "A284")
S: A284 OK SEARCH completed
C: A285 SEARCH CHARSET UTF-8 TEXT {6}
S: + Ready for literal text
C: XXXXXX
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "A285") ALL 43
S: A285 OK SEARCH completed
Note: Since this document is restricted to 7-bit ASCII text, it is not possible to show actual UTF-8 data. The "XXXXXX" is a placeholder for what would be 6 octets of 8-bit data in an actual transaction.
The following example demonstrates finding the first unseen message in the mailbox:
Example: C: A284 SEARCH RETURN (MIN) UNSEEN
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "A284") MIN 4
S: A284 OK SEARCH completed
The following example demonstrates that if the ESEARCH UID indicator is present, all data in the ESEARCH response is referring to UIDs; for example, the MIN result specifier will be followed by a UID.
Example: C: A285 UID SEARCH RETURN (MIN MAX) 1:5000
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "A285") UID MIN 7 MAX 3800
S: A285 OK SEARCH completed
The following example demonstrates returning the number of deleted messages:
Example: C: A286 SEARCH RETURN (COUNT) DELETED
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "A286") COUNT 15
S: A286 OK SEARCH completed
Upon successful completion of a SELECT or an EXAMINE command (after the tagged OK response), the current search result variable is reset to the empty sequence.
A successful SEARCH command with the SAVE result option sets the value of the search result variable to the list of messages found in the SEARCH command. For example, if no messages were found, the search result variable will contain the empty sequence.
Any of the following SEARCH commands MUST NOT change the search result variable:
A SEARCH command with the SAVE result option that caused the server to return the NO tagged response sets the value of the search result variable to the empty sequence.
When a message listed in the search result variable is EXPUNGEd, it is automatically removed from the list. Implementors are reminded that if the server stores the list as a list of message numbers, it MUST automatically adjust them when notifying the client about expunged messages, as described in Section 7.4.1.
If the server decides to send a new UIDVALIDITY value while the mailbox is opened, this causes resetting of the search variable to the empty sequence.
Note that even if the "$" marker contains the empty sequence of messages, it must be treated by all commands accepting message sets as parameters as a valid, but non-matching list of messages. For example, the "FETCH $" command would return a tagged OK response and no FETCH responses. See also the Example 5 in Section 6.4.4.4.
The SAVE result option doesn't change whether the server would return items corresponding to MIN, MAX, ALL, or COUNT result options.
When the SAVE result option is combined with the MIN or MAX result option, and both ALL and COUNT result options are absent, the corresponding MIN/MAX is returned (if the search result is not empty), but the "$" marker would contain a single message as returned in the MIN/MAX return item.
If the SAVE result option is combined with both MIN and MAX result options, and both ALL and COUNT result options are absent, the "$" marker would contain zero, one or two messages as returned in the MIN/MAX return items.
If the SAVE result option is combined with the ALL and/or COUNT result option(s), the "$" marker would always contain all messages found by the SEARCH or UID SEARCH command.
The following table summarizes the additional requirement on ESEARCH server implementations described in this section.
| Combination of Result option | "$" marker value |
|---|---|
| SAVE MIN | MIN |
| SAVE MAX | MAX |
| SAVE MIN MAX | MIN & MAX |
| SAVE * [m] | all found messages |
where '*' means "ALL" and/or "COUNT", and '[m]' means optional "MIN" and/or "MAX"
Implementation note: server implementors should note that "$" can reference IMAP message sequences or UID sequences, depending on the context where it is used. For example, the "$" marker can be set as a result of a SEARCH (SAVE) command and used as a parameter to a UID FETCH command (which accepts a UID sequence, not a message sequence), or the "$" marker can be set as a result of a UID SEARCH (SAVE) command and used as a parameter to a FETCH command (which accepts a message sequence, not a UID sequence). Server implementations need to automatically map the "$" marker value to message numbers or UIDs, depending on context where the "$" marker is used.
Use of a SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) command followed by a command using the "$" marker creates direct dependency between the two commands. As directed by Section 5.5, a server MUST execute the two commands in the order they were received.
A client MAY pipeline a SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) command with one or more command using the "$" marker, as long as this doesn't create an ambiguity, as described in by Section 5.5. Examples 7-9 in Section 6.4.4.4 explain this in more details.
In some cases, the server MAY refuse to save a SEARCH (SAVE) result, for example, if an internal limit on the number of saved results is reached. In this case, the server MUST return a tagged NO response containing the NOTSAVED response code and set the search result variable to the empty sequence, as described in Section 6.4.4.1.
Only in this section: explanatory comments in examples that start with // are not part of the protocol.
1) The following example demonstrates how the client can use the result of a SEARCH command to FETCH headers of interesting messages:
Example 1:
C: A282 SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) FLAGGED SINCE 1-Feb-1994
NOT FROM "Smith"
S: A282 OK SEARCH completed, result saved
C: A283 FETCH $ (UID INTERNALDATE FLAGS BODY.PEEK[HEADER])
S: * 2 FETCH (UID 14 ...
S: * 84 FETCH (UID 100 ...
S: * 882 FETCH (UID 1115 ...
S: A283 OK completed
The client can also pipeline the two commands:
Example 2:
C: A282 SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) FLAGGED SINCE 1-Feb-1994
NOT FROM "Smith"
C: A283 FETCH $ (UID INTERNALDATE FLAGS BODY.PEEK[HEADER])
S: A282 OK SEARCH completed
S: * 2 FETCH (UID 14 ...
S: * 84 FETCH (UID 100 ...
S: * 882 FETCH (UID 1115 ...
S: A283 OK completed
2) The following example demonstrates that the result of one SEARCH command can be used as input to another SEARCH command:
Example 3:
C: A300 SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) SINCE 1-Jan-2004
NOT FROM "Smith"
S: A300 OK SEARCH completed
C: A301 UID SEARCH UID $ SMALLER 4096
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "A301") UID ALL 17,900,901
S: A301 OK completed
Note that the second command in Example 3 can be replaced with:
C: A301 UID SEARCH $ SMALLER 4096
and the result of the command would be the same.
3) The following example shows that the "$" marker can be combined with other message numbers using the OR SEARCH criterion.
Example 4:
C: P282 SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) SINCE 1-Feb-1994
NOT FROM "Smith"
S: P282 OK SEARCH completed
C: P283 SEARCH CHARSET UTF-8 (OR $ 1,3000:3021) TEXT {8}
C: YYYYYYYY
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "P283") ALL 882,1102,3003,3005:3006
S: P283 OK completed
Note: Since this document format is restricted to 7-bit ASCII text, it is not possible to show actual UTF-8 data. The "YYYYYYYY" is a placeholder for what would be 8 octets of 8-bit data in an actual transaction.
4) The following example demonstrates that a failed SEARCH sets the search result variable to the empty list. The server doesn't implement the KOI8-R charset.
Example 5:
C: B282 SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) SINCE 1-Feb-1994
NOT FROM "Smith"
S: B282 OK SEARCH completed
C: B283 SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) CHARSET KOI8-R
(OR $ 1,3000:3021) TEXT {4}
C: XXXX
S: B283 NO [BADCHARSET UTF-8] KOI8-R is not supported
//After this command the saved result variable contains
//no messages. A client that wants to reissue the B283
//SEARCH command with another CHARSET would have to reissue
//the B282 command as well. One possible workaround for
//this is to include the desired CHARSET parameter
//in the earliest SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) command in a
//sequence of related SEARCH commands, to cause
//the earliest SEARCH in the sequence to fail.
//A better approach might be to always use CHARSET UTF-8
//instead.
Note: Since this document format is restricted to 7-bit ASCII text, it is not possible to show actual KOI8-R data. The "XXXX" is a placeholder for what would be 4 octets of 8-bit data in an actual transaction.
5) The following example demonstrates that it is not an error to use the "$" marker when it contains no messages.
Example 6:
C: E282 SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) SINCE 28-Oct-2006
NOT FROM "Eric"
C: E283 COPY $ "Other Messages"
//The "$" contains no messages
S: E282 OK SEARCH completed
S: E283 OK COPY completed, nothing copied
Example 7:
C: F282 SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) KEYWORD $Junk
C: F283 COPY $ "Junk"
C: F284 STORE $ +FLAGS.Silent (\Deleted)
S: F282 OK SEARCH completed
S: F283 OK COPY completed
S: F284 OK STORE completed
Example 8:
C: G282 SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) KEYWORD $Junk
C: G283 SEARCH RETURN (ALL) SINCE 28-Oct-2006
FROM "Eric"
// The server can execute the two SEARCH commands
// in any order, as they don't have any dependency.
// For example, it may return:
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "G283") ALL 3:15,27,29:103
S: G283 OK SEARCH completed
S: G282 OK SEARCH completed
The following example demonstrates that the result of the second SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) always overrides the result of the first.
Example 9:
C: H282 SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) KEYWORD $Junk
C: H283 SEARCH RETURN (SAVE) SINCE 28-Oct-2006
FROM "Eric"
S: H282 OK SEARCH completed
S: H283 OK SEARCH completed
// At this point "$" would contain results of H283
The following example demonstrates behavioral difference for different combinations of ESEARCH result options.
Example 10:
C: C282 SEARCH RETURN (ALL) SINCE 12-Feb-2006
NOT FROM "Smith"
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "C283") ALL 2,10:15,21
//$ value hasn't changed
S: C282 OK SEARCH completed
C: C283 SEARCH RETURN (ALL SAVE) SINCE 12-Feb-2006
NOT FROM "Smith"
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "C283") ALL 2,10:15,21
//$ value is 2,10:15,21
S: C283 OK SEARCH completed
C: C284 SEARCH RETURN (SAVE MIN) SINCE 12-Feb-2006
NOT FROM "Smith"
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "C284") MIN 2
//$ value is 2
S: C284 OK SEARCH completed
C: C285 SEARCH RETURN (MAX SAVE MIN) SINCE
12-Feb-2006 NOT FROM "Smith"
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "C285") MIN 2 MAX 21
//$ value is 2,21
S: C285 OK SEARCH completed
C: C286 SEARCH RETURN (MAX SAVE MIN COUNT)
SINCE 12-Feb-2006 NOT FROM "Smith"
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "C286") MIN 2 MAX 21 COUNT 8
//$ value is 2,10:15,21
S: C286 OK SEARCH completed
C: C286 SEARCH RETURN (ALL SAVE MIN) SINCE
12-Feb-2006 NOT FROM "Smith"
S: * ESEARCH (TAG "C286") MIN 2 ALL 2,10:15,21
//$ value is 2,10:15,21
S: C286 OK SEARCH completed
The FETCH command retrieves data associated with a message in the mailbox. The data items to be fetched can be either a single atom or a parenthesized list.
Most data items, identified in the formal syntax under the msg-att-static rule, are static and MUST NOT change for any particular message. Other data items, identified in the formal syntax under the msg-att-dynamic rule, MAY change, either as a result of a STORE command or due to external events.
There are three macros which specify commonly-used sets of data items, and can be used instead of data items. A macro must be used by itself, and not in conjunction with other macros or data items.
HEADER ([RFC-5322] header of the message)
TEXT ([RFC-5322] text body of the message) MULTIPART/MIXED
1 TEXT/PLAIN
2 APPLICATION/OCTET-STREAM
3 MESSAGE/RFC822
3.HEADER ([RFC-5322] header of the message)
3.TEXT ([RFC-5322] text body of the message) MULTIPART/MIXED
3.1 TEXT/PLAIN
3.2 APPLICATION/OCTET-STREAM
4 MULTIPART/MIXED
4.1 IMAGE/GIF
4.1.MIME ([MIME-IMB] header for the IMAGE/GIF)
4.2 MESSAGE/RFC822
4.2.HEADER ([RFC-5322] header of the message)
4.2.TEXT ([RFC-5322] text body of the message) MULTIPART/MIXED
4.2.1 TEXT/PLAIN
4.2.2 MULTIPART/ALTERNATIVE
4.2.2.1 TEXT/PLAIN
4.2.2.2 TEXT/RICHTEXT
The currently defined data items that can be fetched are:
The \Seen flag is implicitly set; if this causes the flags to change, they SHOULD be included as part of the FETCH responses.
Example: C: A654 FETCH 2:4 (FLAGS BODY[HEADER.FIELDS (DATE FROM)])
S: * 2 FETCH ....
S: * 3 FETCH ....
S: * 4 FETCH ....
S: A654 OK FETCH completed
The STORE command alters data associated with a message in the mailbox. Normally, STORE will return the updated value of the data with an untagged FETCH response. A suffix of ".SILENT" in the data item name prevents the untagged FETCH, and the server SHOULD assume that the client has determined the updated value itself or does not care about the updated value.
The currently defined data items that can be stored are:
Example: C: A003 STORE 2:4 +FLAGS (\Deleted)
S: * 2 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted \Seen))
S: * 3 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted))
S: * 4 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted \Flagged \Seen))
S: A003 OK STORE completed
The COPY command copies the specified message(s) to the end of the specified destination mailbox. The flags and internal date of the message(s) SHOULD be preserved in the copy.
If the destination mailbox does not exist, a server SHOULD return an error. It SHOULD NOT automatically create the mailbox. Unless it is certain that the destination mailbox can not be created, the server MUST send the response code "[TRYCREATE]" as the prefix of the text of the tagged NO response. This gives a hint to the client that it can attempt a CREATE command and retry the COPY if the CREATE is successful.
If the COPY command is unsuccessful for any reason, server implementations MUST restore the destination mailbox to its state before the COPY attempt.
On successful completion of a COPY, the server SHOULD return a COPYUID response code.
In the case of a mailbox that has permissions set so that the client can COPY to the mailbox, but not SELECT or EXAMINE it, the server SHOULD NOT send an COPYUID response code as it would disclose information about the mailbox.
In the case of a mailbox that has UIDNOTSTICKY status (see the UIDNOTSTICKY response code), the server MAY omit the COPYUID response code as it is not meaningful.
If the server does not return the COPYUID response code, the client can discover this information by selecting the destination mailbox. The location of messages placed in the destination mailbox by COPY can be determined by using FETCH and/or SEARCH commands (e.g., for Message-ID).
Example: C: A003 COPY 2:4 MEETING
S: A003 OK COPY completed
The MOVE command moves the specified message(s) to the end of the specified destination mailbox. The flags and internal date of the message(s) SHOULD be preserved.
This means that a new message is created in the target mailbox with a new UID, the original message is removed from the source mailbox, and it appears to the client as a single action. This has the same effect for each message as this sequence:
Although the effect of the MOVE is the same as the preceding steps, the semantics are not identical: The intermediate states produced by those steps do not occur, and the response codes are different. In particular, though the COPY and EXPUNGE response codes will be returned, response codes for a STORE MUST NOT be generated and the \Deleted flag MUST NOT be set for any message.
Because a MOVE applies to a set of messages, it might fail partway through the set. Regardless of whether the command is successful in moving the entire set, each individual message SHOULD either be moved or unaffected. The server MUST leave each message in a state where it is in at least one of the source or target mailboxes (no message can be lost or orphaned). The server SHOULD NOT leave any message in both mailboxes (it would be bad for a partial failure to result in a bunch of duplicate messages). This is true even if the server returns a tagged NO response to the command.
Because of the similarity of MOVE to COPY, extensions that affect COPY affect MOVE in the same way. Response codes such as TRYCREATE (see Section 7.1), as well as those defined by extensions, are sent as appropriate.
Servers SHOULD send COPYUID in response to a UID MOVE (see Section 6.4.9) command. For additional information see Section 7.1.
Servers are also advised to send the COPYUID response code in an untagged OK before sending EXPUNGE or moved responses. (Sending COPYUID in the tagged OK, as described in the UIDPLUS specification, means that clients first receive an EXPUNGE for a message and afterwards COPYUID for the same message. It can be unnecessarily difficult to process that sequence usefully.)
An example:
C: a UID MOVE 42:69 foo
S: * OK [COPYUID 432432 42:69 1202:1229]
S: * 22 EXPUNGE
S: (more expunges)
S: a OK Done
Note that the server may send unrelated EXPUNGE responses as well, if any happen to have been expunged at the same time; this is normal IMAP operation.
Note that moving a message to the currently selected mailbox (that is, where the source and target mailboxes are the same) is allowed when copying the message to the currently selected mailbox is allowed.
The server may send EXPUNGE responses before the tagged response, so the client cannot safely send more commands with message sequence number arguments while the server is processing MOVE.
MOVE and UID MOVE can be pipelined with other commands, but care has to be taken. Both commands modify sequence numbers and also allow unrelated EXPUNGE responses. The renumbering of other messages in the source mailbox following any EXPUNGE response can be surprising and makes it unsafe to pipeline any command that relies on message sequence numbers after a MOVE or UID MOVE. Similarly, MOVE cannot be pipelined with a command that might cause message renumbering. See Section 5.5, for more information about ambiguities as well as handling requirements for both clients and servers.
The UID command has three forms. In the first form, it takes as its arguments a COPY, MOVE, FETCH, or STORE command with arguments appropriate for the associated command. However, the numbers in the sequence set argument are unique identifiers instead of message sequence numbers. Sequence set ranges are permitted, but there is no guarantee that unique identifiers will be contiguous.
A non-existent unique identifier is ignored without any error message generated. Thus, it is possible for a UID FETCH command to return an OK without any data or a UID COPY, UID MOVE or UID STORE to return an OK without performing any operations.
In the second form, the UID command takes an EXPUNGE command with an extra parameter the specified a sequence set of UIDs to operate on. The UID EXPUNGE command permanently removes all messages that both have the \Deleted flag set and have a UID that is included in the specified sequence set from the currently selected mailbox. If a message either does not have the \Deleted flag set or has a UID that is not included in the specified sequence set, it is not affected.
Example: C: A003 UID EXPUNGE 3000:3002
S: * 3 EXPUNGE
S: * 3 EXPUNGE
S: * 3 EXPUNGE
S: A003 OK UID EXPUNGE completed
In the third form, the UID command takes a SEARCH command with SEARCH command arguments. The interpretation of the arguments is the same as with SEARCH; however, the numbers returned in a ESEARCH response for a UID SEARCH command are unique identifiers instead of message sequence numbers. Also, the corresponding ESEARCH response MUST include the UID indicator. For example, the command UID SEARCH 1:100 UID 443:557 returns the unique identifiers corresponding to the intersection of two sequence sets, the message sequence number range 1:100 and the UID range 443:557.
The number after the "*" in an untagged FETCH or EXPUNGE response is always a message sequence number, not a unique identifier, even for a UID command response. However, server implementations MUST implicitly include the UID message data item as part of any FETCH response caused by a UID command, regardless of whether a UID was specified as a message data item to the FETCH.
Note: The rule about including the UID message data item as part of a FETCH response primarily applies to the UID FETCH and UID STORE commands, including a UID FETCH command that does not include UID as a message data item. Although it is unlikely that the other UID commands will cause an untagged FETCH, this rule applies to these commands as well.
Example: C: A999 UID FETCH 4827313:4828442 FLAGS
S: * 23 FETCH (FLAGS (\Seen) UID 4827313)
S: * 24 FETCH (FLAGS (\Seen) UID 4827943)
S: * 25 FETCH (FLAGS (\Seen) UID 4828442)
S: A999 OK UID FETCH completed
Any command prefixed with an X is an experimental command. Commands which are not part of this specification, a standard or standards-track revision of this specification, or an IESG-approved experimental protocol, MUST use the X prefix.
Any added untagged responses issued by an experimental command MUST also be prefixed with an X. Server implementations MUST NOT send any such untagged responses, unless the client requested it by issuing the associated experimental command.
Example: C: a441 CAPABILITY
S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev2 XPIG-LATIN
S: a441 OK CAPABILITY completed
C: A442 XPIG-LATIN
S: * XPIG-LATIN ow-nay eaking-spay ig-pay atin-lay
S: A442 OK XPIG-LATIN ompleted-cay
Server responses are in three forms: status responses, server data, and command continuation request. The information contained in a server response, identified by "Contents:" in the response descriptions below, is described by function, not by syntax. The precise syntax of server responses is described in the Formal Syntax section.
The client MUST be prepared to accept any response at all times.
Status responses can be tagged or untagged. Tagged status responses indicate the completion result (OK, NO, or BAD status) of a client command, and have a tag matching the command.
Some status responses, and all server data, are untagged. An untagged response is indicated by the token "*" instead of a tag. Untagged status responses indicate server greeting, or server status that does not indicate the completion of a command (for example, an impending system shutdown alert). For historical reasons, untagged server data responses are also called "unsolicited data", although strictly speaking, only unilateral server data is truly "unsolicited".
Certain server data MUST be recorded by the client when it is received; this is noted in the description of that data. Such data conveys critical information which affects the interpretation of all subsequent commands and responses (e.g., updates reflecting the creation or destruction of messages).
Other server data SHOULD be recorded for later reference; if the client does not need to record the data, or if recording the data has no obvious purpose (e.g., a SEARCH response when no SEARCH command is in progress), the data SHOULD be ignored.
An example of unilateral untagged server data occurs when the IMAP connection is in the selected state. In the selected state, the server checks the mailbox for new messages as part of command execution. Normally, this is part of the execution of every command; hence, a NOOP command suffices to check for new messages. If new messages are found, the server sends untagged EXISTS response reflecting the new size of the mailbox. Server implementations that offer multiple simultaneous access to the same mailbox SHOULD also send appropriate unilateral untagged FETCH and EXPUNGE responses if another agent changes the state of any message flags or expunges any messages.
Command continuation request responses use the token "+" instead of a tag. These responses are sent by the server to indicate acceptance of an incomplete client command and readiness for the remainder of the command.
Status responses are OK, NO, BAD, PREAUTH and BYE. OK, NO, and BAD can be tagged or untagged. PREAUTH and BYE are always untagged.
Status responses MAY include an OPTIONAL "response code". A response code consists of data inside square brackets in the form of an atom, possibly followed by a space and arguments. The response code contains additional information or status codes for client software beyond the OK/NO/BAD condition, and are defined when there is a specific action that a client can take based upon the additional information.
The currently defined response codes are:
Client implementations MUST ignore response codes that they do not recognize.
The OK response indicates an information message from the server. When tagged, it indicates successful completion of the associated command. The human-readable text MAY be presented to the user as an information message. The untagged form indicates an information-only message; the nature of the information MAY be indicated by a response code.
The untagged form is also used as one of three possible greetings at connection startup. It indicates that the connection is not yet authenticated and that a LOGIN or an AUTHENTICATE command is needed.
Example: S: * OK IMAP4rev2 server ready
C: A001 LOGIN fred blurdybloop
S: * OK [ALERT] System shutdown in 10 minutes
S: A001 OK LOGIN Completed
The NO response indicates an operational error message from the server. When tagged, it indicates unsuccessful completion of the associated command. The untagged form indicates a warning; the command can still complete successfully. The human-readable text describes the condition.
Example: C: A222 COPY 1:2 owatagusiam
S: * NO Disk is 98% full, please delete unnecessary data
S: A222 OK COPY completed
C: A223 COPY 3:200 blurdybloop
S: * NO Disk is 98% full, please delete unnecessary data
S: * NO Disk is 99% full, please delete unnecessary data
S: A223 NO COPY failed: disk is full
The BAD response indicates an error message from the server. When tagged, it reports a protocol-level error in the client's command; the tag indicates the command that caused the error. The untagged form indicates a protocol-level error for which the associated command can not be determined; it can also indicate an internal server failure. The human-readable text describes the condition.
Example: C: ...very long command line...
S: * BAD Command line too long
C: ...empty line...
S: * BAD Empty command line
C: A443 EXPUNGE
S: * BAD Disk crash, attempting salvage to a new disk!
S: * OK Salvage successful, no data lost
S: A443 OK Expunge completed
The PREAUTH response is always untagged, and is one of three possible greetings at connection startup. It indicates that the connection has already been authenticated by external means; thus no LOGIN/AUTHENTICATE command is needed.
Example: S: * PREAUTH IMAP4rev2 server logged in as Smith
The BYE response is always untagged, and indicates that the server is about to close the connection. The human-readable text MAY be displayed to the user in a status report by the client. The BYE response is sent under one of four conditions:
The difference between a BYE that occurs as part of a normal LOGOUT sequence (the first case) and a BYE that occurs because of a failure (the other three cases) is that the connection closes immediately in the failure case. In all cases the client SHOULD continue to read response data from the server until the connection is closed; this will ensure that any pending untagged or completion responses are read and processed.
Example: S: * BYE Autologout; idle for too long
These responses are always untagged. This is how server and mailbox status data are transmitted from the server to the client. Many of these responses typically result from a command with the same name.
The ENABLED response occurs as a result of an ENABLE command. The capability listing contains a space-separated listing of capability names that the server supports and that were successfully enabled. The ENABLED response may contain no capabilities, which means that no extensions listed by the client were successfully enabled.
The CAPABILITY response occurs as a result of a CAPABILITY command. The capability listing contains a space-separated listing of capability names that the server supports. The capability listing MUST include the atom "IMAP4rev2".
In addition, client and server implementations MUST implement the STARTTLS, LOGINDISABLED, and AUTH=PLAIN (described in [PLAIN]) capabilities. See the Security Considerations section for important information.
A capability name which begins with "AUTH=" indicates that the server supports that particular authentication mechanism.
The LOGINDISABLED capability indicates that the LOGIN command is disabled, and that the server will respond with a tagged NO response to any attempt to use the LOGIN command even if the user name and password are valid. An IMAP client MUST NOT issue the LOGIN command if the server advertises the LOGINDISABLED capability.
Other capability names indicate that the server supports an extension, revision, or amendment to the IMAP4rev2 protocol. Server responses MUST conform to this document until the client issues a command that uses the associated capability.
Capability names MUST either begin with "X" or be informational, experimental or standards-track IMAP4rev2 extensions, revisions, or amendments registered with IANA. A server SHOULD NOT offer unregistered or non-standard capability names, unless such names are prefixed with an "X".
Client implementations SHOULD NOT require any capability name other than "IMAP4rev2", and MUST ignore any unknown capability names.
A server MAY send capabilities automatically, by using the CAPABILITY response code in the initial PREAUTH or OK responses, and by sending an updated CAPABILITY response code in the tagged OK response as part of a successful authentication. It is unnecessary for a client to send a separate CAPABILITY command if it recognizes these automatic capabilities.
Example: S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev2 STARTTLS AUTH=GSSAPI XPIG-LATIN
The LIST response occurs as a result of a LIST command. It returns a single name that matches the LIST specification. There can be multiple LIST responses for a single LIST command.
The following base mailbox name attributes are defined:
In practice, this means that the "\NonExistent" attribute is usually returned with one or more of "\Subscribed", "\Remote", "\HasChildren", or the CHILDINFO extended data item.
It is an error for the server to return both a \HasChildren and a \HasNoChildren attribute in the same LIST response.
If it is not feasible for the server to determine whether or not the mailbox is "interesting", the server SHOULD NOT send either \Marked or \Unmarked. The server MUST NOT send more than one of \Marked, \Unmarked, and \Noselect for a single mailbox, and MAY send none of these.
In addition to the base mailbox name attributes defined above, an IMAP server MAY also include any or all of the following attributes that denote "role" (or "special-use") of a mailbox. These attributes are included along with base attributes defined above. A given mailbox may have none, one, or more than one of these attributes. In some cases, a special use is advice to a client about what to put in that mailbox. In other cases, it's advice to a client about what to expect to find there.
All of special-use attributes are OPTIONAL, and any given server or message store may support any combination of the attributes, or none at all. In most cases, there will likely be at most one mailbox with a given attribute for a given user, but in some server or message store implementations it might be possible for multiple mailboxes to have the same special-use attribute.
Special-use attributes are likely to be user-specific. User Adam might share his \Sent mailbox with user Barb, but that mailbox is unlikely to also serve as Barb's \Sent mailbox.
Other mailbox name attributes can be found in the "IMAP Mailbox Name Attributes" registry [IMAP-MAILBOX-NAME-ATTRS-REG].
The hierarchy delimiter is a character used to delimit levels of hierarchy in a mailbox name. A client can use it to create child mailboxes, and to search higher or lower levels of naming hierarchy. All children of a top-level hierarchy node MUST use the same separator character. A NIL hierarchy delimiter means that no hierarchy exists; the name is a "flat" name.
The name represents an unambiguous left-to-right hierarchy, and MUST be valid for use as a reference in LIST command. Unless \Noselect or \NonExistent is indicated, the name MUST also be valid as an argument for commands, such as SELECT, that accept mailbox names.
The name might be followed by an OPTIONAL series of extended fields, a parenthesized list of tagged data (also referred to as "extended data item"). The first element of an extended field is a string, which identifies the type of data. [RFC5258] specified requirements on string registration (which are called "tags" there; such tags are not to be confused with IMAP command tags), in particular it said that "Tags MUST be registered with IANA". This document doesn't change that. See Section 9.5 of [RFC5258] for the registration template. The server MAY return data in the extended fields that was not directly solicited by the client in the corresponding LIST command. For example, the client can enable extra extended fields by using another IMAP extension that make use of the extended LIST responses. The client MUST ignore all extended fields it doesn't recognize.
Example: S: * LIST (\Noselect) "/" ~/Mail/foo
Example: S: * LIST (\Marked) ":" Tables (tablecloth (("edge" "lacy")
("color" "red")) Sample "text")
S: * LIST () ":" Tables:new (tablecloth ("edge" "lacy")
Sample ("text" "more text"))
The NAMESPACE response occurs as a result of a NAMESPACE command. It contains the prefix and hierarchy delimiter to the server's Personal Namespace(s), Other Users' Namespace(s), and Shared Namespace(s) that the server wishes to expose. The response will contain a NIL for any namespace class that is not available. Namespace-Response-Extensions ABNF non terminal is defined for extensibility and MAY be included in the response.
Example: S: * NAMESPACE (("" "/")) (("~" "/")) NIL
The STATUS response occurs as a result of an STATUS command. It returns the mailbox name that matches the STATUS specification and the requested mailbox status information.
Example: S: * STATUS blurdybloop (MESSAGES 231 UIDNEXT 44292)
The ESEARCH response occurs as a result of a SEARCH or UID SEARCH command.
The ESEARCH response starts with an optional search correlator. If it is missing, then the response was not caused by a particular IMAP command, whereas if it is present, it contains the tag of the command that caused the response to be returned.
The search correlator is followed by an optional UID indicator. If this indicator is present, all data in the ESEARCH response refers to UIDs, otherwise all returned data refers to message numbers.
The rest of the ESEARCH response contains one or more search data pairs. Each pair starts with unique return item name, followed by a space and the corresponding data. Search data pairs may be returned in any order. Unless specified otherwise by an extension, any return item name SHOULD appear only once in an ESEARCH response.
[[TBD: describe the most common search data pairs returned.]]
Example: S: * ESEARCH UID COUNT 5 ALL 4:19,21,28 Example: S: * ESEARCH (TAG "a567") UID COUNT 5 ALL 4:19,21,28 Example: S: * ESEARCH COUNT 5 ALL 1:17,21
The FLAGS response occurs as a result of a SELECT or EXAMINE command. The flag parenthesized list identifies the flags (at a minimum, the system-defined flags) that are applicable for this mailbox. Flags other than the system flags can also exist, depending on server implementation.
The update from the FLAGS response MUST be recorded by the client.
Example: S: * FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft)
These responses are always untagged. This is how changes in the size of the mailbox are transmitted from the server to the client. Immediately following the "*" token is a number that represents a message count.
The EXISTS response reports the number of messages in the mailbox. This response occurs as a result of a SELECT or EXAMINE command, and if the size of the mailbox changes (e.g., new messages).
The update from the EXISTS response MUST be recorded by the client.
Example: S: * 23 EXISTS
These responses are always untagged. This is how message data are transmitted from the server to the client, often as a result of a command with the same name. Immediately following the "*" token is a number that represents a message sequence number.
The EXPUNGE response reports that the specified message sequence number has been permanently removed from the mailbox. The message sequence number for each successive message in the mailbox is immediately decremented by 1, and this decrement is reflected in message sequence numbers in subsequent responses (including other untagged EXPUNGE responses).
The EXPUNGE response also decrements the number of messages in the mailbox; it is not necessary to send an EXISTS response with the new value.
As a result of the immediate decrement rule, message sequence numbers that appear in a set of successive EXPUNGE responses depend upon whether the messages are removed starting from lower numbers to higher numbers, or from higher numbers to lower numbers. For example, if the last 5 messages in a 9-message mailbox are expunged, a "lower to higher" server will send five untagged EXPUNGE responses for message sequence number 5, whereas a "higher to lower server" will send successive untagged EXPUNGE responses for message sequence numbers 9, 8, 7, 6, and 5.
An EXPUNGE response MUST NOT be sent when no command is in progress, nor while responding to a FETCH, STORE, or SEARCH command. This rule is necessary to prevent a loss of synchronization of message sequence numbers between client and server. A command is not "in progress" until the complete command has been received; in particular, a command is not "in progress" during the negotiation of command continuation.
The update from the EXPUNGE response MUST be recorded by the client.
Example: S: * 44 EXPUNGE
The FETCH response returns data about a message to the client. The data are pairs of data item names and their values in parentheses. This response occurs as the result of a FETCH or STORE command, as well as by unilateral server decision (e.g., flag updates).
The current data items are:
If the server chooses to send unsolicited FETCH responses, they MUST include UID FETCH item. Note that this is a new requirement when compared to RFC 3501.
Example: S: * 23 FETCH (FLAGS (\Seen) RFC822.SIZE 44827)
The command continuation request response is indicated by a "+" token instead of a tag. This form of response indicates that the server is ready to accept the continuation of a command from the client. The remainder of this response is a line of text.
This response is used in the AUTHENTICATE command to transmit server data to the client, and request additional client data. This response is also used if an argument to any command is a synchronizing literal.
The client is not permitted to send the octets of the synchronizing literal unless the server indicates that it is expected. This permits the server to process commands and reject errors on a line-by-line basis. The remainder of the command, including the CRLF that terminates a command, follows the octets of the literal. If there are any additional command arguments, the literal octets are followed by a space and those arguments.
Example: C: A001 LOGIN {11}
S: + Ready for additional command text
C: FRED FOOBAR {7}
S: + Ready for additional command text
C: fat man
S: A001 OK LOGIN completed
C: A044 BLURDYBLOOP {102856}
S: A044 BAD No such command as "BLURDYBLOOP"
The following is a transcript of an IMAP4rev2 connection. A long line in this sample is broken for editorial clarity.
S: * OK IMAP4rev2 Service Ready
C: a001 login mrc secret
S: a001 OK LOGIN completed
C: a002 select inbox
S: * 18 EXISTS
S: * FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft)
S: * OK [UIDVALIDITY 3857529045] UIDs valid
S: a002 OK [READ-WRITE] SELECT completed
C: a003 fetch 12 full
S: * 12 FETCH (FLAGS (\Seen) INTERNALDATE "17-Jul-1996 02:44:25 -0700"
RFC822.SIZE 4286 ENVELOPE ("Wed, 17 Jul 1996 02:23:25 -0700 (PDT)"
"IMAP4rev2 WG mtg summary and minutes"
(("Terry Gray" NIL "gray" "cac.washington.edu"))
(("Terry Gray" NIL "gray" "cac.washington.edu"))
(("Terry Gray" NIL "gray" "cac.washington.edu"))
((NIL NIL "imap" "cac.washington.edu"))
((NIL NIL "minutes" "CNRI.Reston.VA.US")
("John Klensin" NIL "KLENSIN" "MIT.EDU")) NIL NIL
"<B27397-0100000@cac.washington.edu>")
BODY ("TEXT" "PLAIN" ("CHARSET" "US-ASCII") NIL NIL "7BIT" 3028
92))
S: a003 OK FETCH completed
C: a004 fetch 12 body[header]
S: * 12 FETCH (BODY[HEADER] {342}
S: Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 02:23:25 -0700 (PDT)
S: From: Terry Gray <gray@cac.washington.edu>
S: Subject: IMAP4rev2 WG mtg summary and minutes
S: To: imap@cac.washington.edu
S: cc: minutes@CNRI.Reston.VA.US, John Klensin <KLENSIN@MIT.EDU>
S: Message-Id: <B27397-0100000@cac.washington.edu>
S: MIME-Version: 1.0
S: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
S:
S: )
S: a004 OK FETCH completed
C: a005 store 12 +flags \deleted
S: * 12 FETCH (FLAGS (\Seen \Deleted))
S: a005 OK +FLAGS completed
C: a006 logout
S: * BYE IMAP4rev2 server terminating connection
S: a006 OK LOGOUT completed
The following syntax specification uses the Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF) notation as specified in [ABNF].
In the case of alternative or optional rules in which a later rule overlaps an earlier rule, the rule which is listed earlier MUST take priority. For example, "\Seen" when parsed as a flag is the \Seen flag name and not a flag-extension, even though "\Seen" can be parsed as a flag-extension. Some, but not all, instances of this rule are noted below.
address = "(" addr-name SP addr-adl SP addr-mailbox SP
addr-host ")"
addr-adl = nstring
; Holds route from [RFC-5322] obs-route if
; non-NIL
addr-host = nstring
; NIL indicates [RFC-5322] group syntax.
; Otherwise, holds [RFC-5322] domain name
addr-mailbox = nstring
; NIL indicates end of [RFC-5322] group; if
; non-NIL and addr-host is NIL, holds
; [RFC-5322] group name.
; Otherwise, holds [RFC-5322] local-part
; after removing [RFC-5322] quoting
addr-name = nstring
; If non-NIL, holds phrase from [RFC-5322]
; mailbox after removing [RFC-5322] quoting
append = "APPEND" SP mailbox [SP flag-list] [SP date-time] SP
literal
append-uid = uniqueid
astring = 1*ASTRING-CHAR / string
ASTRING-CHAR = ATOM-CHAR / resp-specials
atom = 1*ATOM-CHAR
ATOM-CHAR = <any CHAR except atom-specials>
atom-specials = "(" / ")" / "{" / SP / CTL / list-wildcards /
quoted-specials / resp-specials
authenticate = "AUTHENTICATE" SP auth-type [SP initial-resp]
*(CRLF base64)
auth-type = atom
; Defined by [SASL]
base64 = *(4base64-char) [base64-terminal]
base64-char = ALPHA / DIGIT / "+" / "/"
; Case-sensitive
base64-terminal = (2base64-char "==") / (3base64-char "=")
body = "(" (body-type-1part / body-type-mpart) ")"
body-extension = nstring / number /
"(" body-extension *(SP body-extension) ")"
; Future expansion. Client implementations
; MUST accept body-extension fields. Server
; implementations MUST NOT generate
; body-extension fields except as defined by
; future standard or standards-track
; revisions of this specification.
body-ext-1part = body-fld-md5 [SP body-fld-dsp [SP body-fld-lang
[SP body-fld-loc *(SP body-extension)]]]
; MUST NOT be returned on non-extensible
; "BODY" fetch
body-ext-mpart = body-fld-param [SP body-fld-dsp [SP body-fld-lang
[SP body-fld-loc *(SP body-extension)]]]
; MUST NOT be returned on non-extensible
; "BODY" fetch
body-fields = body-fld-param SP body-fld-id SP body-fld-desc SP
body-fld-enc SP body-fld-octets
body-fld-desc = nstring
body-fld-dsp = "(" string SP body-fld-param ")" / nil
body-fld-enc = (DQUOTE ("7BIT" / "8BIT" / "BINARY" / "BASE64"/
"QUOTED-PRINTABLE") DQUOTE) / string
; Content-Transfer-Encoding header field value.
; Defaults to "7BIT" (as per RFC 2045)
; if not present in the body part.
body-fld-id = nstring
body-fld-lang = nstring / "(" string *(SP string) ")"
body-fld-loc = nstring
body-fld-lines = number
body-fld-md5 = nstring
body-fld-octets = number
body-fld-param = "(" string SP string *(SP string SP string) ")" / nil
body-type-1part = (body-type-basic / body-type-msg / body-type-text)
[SP body-ext-1part]
body-type-basic = media-basic SP body-fields
; MESSAGE subtype MUST NOT be "RFC822" or "GLOBAL"
body-type-mpart = 1*body SP media-subtype
[SP body-ext-mpart]
; MULTIPART body part
body-type-msg = media-message SP body-fields SP envelope
SP body SP body-fld-lines
body-type-text = media-text SP body-fields SP body-fld-lines
capability = ("AUTH=" auth-type) / atom
; New capabilities MUST begin with "X" or be
; registered with IANA in
; a standards-track, an experimental
; or an informational RFC.
capability-data = "CAPABILITY" *(SP capability) SP "IMAP4rev2"
*(SP capability)
; Servers MUST implement the STARTTLS, AUTH=PLAIN,
; and LOGINDISABLED capabilities.
; Servers which offer RFC 1730 compatibility MUST
; list "IMAP4" as the first capability.
; Servers which offer RFC 3501 compatibility MUST
; list "IMAP4rev1" as one of capabilities.
CHAR = <defined in [ABNF]>
CHAR8 = %x01-ff
; any OCTET except NUL, %x00
charset = atom / quoted
childinfo-extended-item = "CHILDINFO" SP "("
list-select-base-opt-quoted
*(SP list-select-base-opt-quoted) ")"
; Extended data item (mbox-list-extended-item)
; returned when the RECURSIVEMATCH
; selection option is specified.
; Note 1: the CHILDINFO extended data item tag can be
; returned with and without surrounding quotes, as per
; mbox-list-extended-item-tag production.
; Note 2: The selection options are always returned
; quoted, unlike their specification in
; the extended LIST command.
child-mbox-flag = "\HasChildren" / "\HasNoChildren"
; attributes for CHILDREN return option, at most one
; possible per LIST response
command = tag SP (command-any / command-auth / command-nonauth /
command-select) CRLF
; Modal based on state
command-any = "CAPABILITY" / "LOGOUT" / "NOOP" / enable / x-command
; Valid in all states
command-auth = append / create / delete / examine / list /
Namespace-Command /
rename / select / status / subscribe / unsubscribe /
idle
; Valid only in Authenticated or Selected state
command-nonauth = login / authenticate / "STARTTLS"
; Valid only when in Not Authenticated state
command-select = "CLOSE" / "UNSELECT" / "EXPUNGE" / copy /
move / fetch / store / search / uid
; Valid only when in Selected state
continue-req = "+" SP (resp-text / base64) CRLF
copy = "COPY" SP sequence-set SP mailbox
create = "CREATE" SP mailbox
; Use of INBOX gives a NO error
date = date-text / DQUOTE date-text DQUOTE
date-day = 1*2DIGIT
; Day of month
date-day-fixed = (SP DIGIT) / 2DIGIT
; Fixed-format version of date-day
date-month = "Jan" / "Feb" / "Mar" / "Apr" / "May" / "Jun" /
"Jul" / "Aug" / "Sep" / "Oct" / "Nov" / "Dec"
date-text = date-day "-" date-month "-" date-year
date-year = 4DIGIT
date-time = DQUOTE date-day-fixed "-" date-month "-" date-year
SP time SP zone DQUOTE
delete = "DELETE" SP mailbox
; Use of INBOX gives a NO error
digit-nz = %x31-39
; 1-9
eitem-standard-tag = atom
; a tag for LIST extended data item defined in a Standard
; Track or Experimental RFC.
eitem-vendor-tag = vendor-token "-" atom
; a vendor-specific tag for LIST extended data item
enable = "ENABLE" 1*(SP capability)
enable-data = "ENABLED" *(SP capability)
envelope = "(" env-date SP env-subject SP env-from SP
env-sender SP env-reply-to SP env-to SP env-cc SP
env-bcc SP env-in-reply-to SP env-message-id ")"
env-bcc = "(" 1*address ")" / nil
env-cc = "(" 1*address ")" / nil
env-date = nstring
env-from = "(" 1*address ")" / nil
env-in-reply-to = nstring
env-message-id = nstring
env-reply-to = "(" 1*address ")" / nil
env-sender = "(" 1*address ")" / nil
env-subject = nstring
env-to = "(" 1*address ")" / nil
esearch-response = "ESEARCH" [search-correlator] [SP "UID"]
*(SP search-return-data)
; ESEARCH response replaces SEARCH response
; from IMAP4rev1.
examine = "EXAMINE" SP mailbox
fetch = "FETCH" SP sequence-set SP ("ALL" / "FULL" / "FAST" /
fetch-att / "(" fetch-att *(SP fetch-att) ")")
fetch-att = "ENVELOPE" / "FLAGS" / "INTERNALDATE" /
"RFC822.SIZE" /
"BODY" ["STRUCTURE"] / "UID" /
"BODY" section [partial] /
"BODY.PEEK" section [partial] /
"BINARY" [".PEEK"] section-binary [partial] /
"BINARY.SIZE" section-binary
flag = "\Answered" / "\Flagged" / "\Deleted" /
"\Seen" / "\Draft" / flag-keyword / flag-extension
; Does not include "\Recent"
flag-extension = "\" atom
; Future expansion. Client implementations
; MUST accept flag-extension flags. Server
; implementations MUST NOT generate
; flag-extension flags except as defined by
; future standard or standards-track
; revisions of this specification.
; "\Recent" was defined in RFC 3501
; and is now deprecated.
flag-fetch = flag
flag-keyword = "$MDNSent" / "$Forwarded" / "$Junk" /
"$NotJunk" / "$Phishing" / atom
flag-list = "(" [flag *(SP flag)] ")"
flag-perm = flag / "\*"
greeting = "*" SP (resp-cond-auth / resp-cond-bye) CRLF
header-fld-name = astring
header-list = "(" header-fld-name *(SP header-fld-name) ")"
idle = "IDLE" CRLF "DONE"
initial-resp = (base64 / "=")
; "initial response" defined in
; Section 5.1 of [RFC4422]
list = "LIST" [SP list-select-opts] SP mailbox SP mbox-or-pat
[SP list-return-opts]
list-mailbox = 1*list-char / string
list-char = ATOM-CHAR / list-wildcards / resp-specials
list-return-opts = "RETURN" SP
"(" [return-option *(SP return-option)] ")"
; list return options, e.g., CHILDREN
list-select-base-opt = "SUBSCRIBED" / option-extension
; options that can be used by themselves
list-select-base-opt-quoted = DQUOTE list-select-base-opt DQUOTE
list-select-independent-opt = "REMOTE" / option-extension
; options that do not syntactically interact with
; other options
list-select-mod-opt = "RECURSIVEMATCH" / option-extension
; options that require a list-select-base-opt
; to also be present
list-select-opt = list-select-base-opt / list-select-independent-opt
/ list-select-mod-opt
; An option registration template is described in
; Section 9.3 of this document.
list-select-opts = "(" [
(*(list-select-opt SP) list-select-base-opt
*(SP list-select-opt))
/ (list-select-independent-opt
*(SP list-select-independent-opt))
] ")"
; Any number of options may be in any order.
; If a list-select-mod-opt appears, then a
; list-select-base-opt must also appear.
; This allows these:
; ()
; (REMOTE)
; (SUBSCRIBED)
; (SUBSCRIBED REMOTE)
; (SUBSCRIBED RECURSIVEMATCH)
; (SUBSCRIBED REMOTE RECURSIVEMATCH)
; But does NOT allow these:
; (RECURSIVEMATCH)
; (REMOTE RECURSIVEMATCH)
list-wildcards = "%" / "*"
literal = "{" number ["+"] "}" CRLF *CHAR8
; <number> represents the number of CHAR8s.
; A non-synchronizing literal is distinguished from
; a synchronizing literal by presence of the "+"
; before the closing "}".
; Non synchronizing literals are not allowed when
; sent from server to the client.
literal8 = "~{" number "}" CRLF *OCTET
; <number> represents the number of OCTETs
; in the response string.
login = "LOGIN" SP userid SP password
mailbox = "INBOX" / astring
; INBOX is case-insensitive. All case variants of
; INBOX (e.g., "iNbOx") MUST be interpreted as INBOX
; not as an astring. An astring which consists of
; the case-insensitive sequence "I" "N" "B" "O" "X"
; is considered to be INBOX and not an astring.
; Refer to section 5.1 for further
; semantic details of mailbox names.
mailbox-data = "FLAGS" SP flag-list / "LIST" SP mailbox-list /
esearch-response /
"STATUS" SP mailbox SP "(" [status-att-list] ")" /
number SP "EXISTS" / Namespace-Response
mailbox-list = "(" [mbx-list-flags] ")" SP
(DQUOTE QUOTED-CHAR DQUOTE / nil) SP mailbox
[SP mbox-list-extended]
; This is the list information pointed to by the ABNF
; item "mailbox-data", which is defined in [IMAP4]
mbox-list-extended = "(" [mbox-list-extended-item
*(SP mbox-list-extended-item)] ")"
mbox-list-extended-item = mbox-list-extended-item-tag SP
tagged-ext-val
mbox-list-extended-item-tag = astring
; The content MUST conform to either "eitem-vendor-tag"
; or "eitem-standard-tag" ABNF productions.
mbox-or-pat = list-mailbox / patterns
mbx-list-flags = *(mbx-list-oflag SP) mbx-list-sflag
*(SP mbx-list-oflag) /
mbx-list-oflag *(SP mbx-list-oflag)
mbx-list-oflag = "\Noinferiors" / child-mbox-flag /
"\Subscribed" / "\Remote" / flag-extension
; Other flags; multiple possible per LIST response
mbx-list-sflag = "\NonExistent" / "\Noselect" / "\Marked" / "\Unmarked"
; Selectability flags; only one per LIST response
media-basic = ((DQUOTE ("APPLICATION" / "AUDIO" / "IMAGE" /
"FONT" / "MESSAGE" / "MODEL" / "VIDEO" ) DQUOTE)
/ string)
SP media-subtype
; Defined in [MIME-IMT].
; FONT defined in RFC 8081.
media-message = DQUOTE "MESSAGE" DQUOTE SP
DQUOTE ("RFC822" / "GLOBAL") DQUOTE
; Defined in [MIME-IMT]
media-subtype = string
; Defined in [MIME-IMT]
media-text = DQUOTE "TEXT" DQUOTE SP media-subtype
; Defined in [MIME-IMT]
message-data = nz-number SP ("EXPUNGE" / ("FETCH" SP msg-att))
move = "MOVE" SP sequence-set SP mailbox
msg-att = "(" (msg-att-dynamic / msg-att-static)
*(SP (msg-att-dynamic / msg-att-static)) ")"
msg-att-dynamic = "FLAGS" SP "(" [flag-fetch *(SP flag-fetch)] ")"
; MAY change for a message
msg-att-static = "ENVELOPE" SP envelope / "INTERNALDATE" SP date-time /
"RFC822.SIZE" SP number /
"BODY" ["STRUCTURE"] SP body /
"BODY" section ["<" number ">"] SP nstring /
"BINARY" section-binary SP (nstring / literal8) /
"BINARY.SIZE" section-binary SP number /
"UID" SP uniqueid
; MUST NOT change for a message
name-component = 1*UTF8-CHAR
; MUST NOT contain ".", "/", "%", or "*"
Namespace = nil / "(" 1*Namespace-Descr ")"
Namespace-Command = "NAMESPACE"
Namespace-Descr = "(" string SP
(DQUOTE QUOTED-CHAR DQUOTE / nil)
[Namespace-Response-Extensions] ")"
Namespace-Response-Extensions = *Namespace-Response-Extension
Namespace-Response-Extension = SP string SP
"(" string *(SP string) ")"
Namespace-Response = "NAMESPACE" SP Namespace
SP Namespace SP Namespace
; The first Namespace is the Personal Namespace(s).
; The second Namespace is the Other Users'
; Namespace(s).
; The third Namespace is the Shared Namespace(s).
nil = "NIL"
nstring = string / nil
number = 1*DIGIT
; Unsigned 32-bit integer
; (0 <= n < 4,294,967,296)
number64 = 1*DIGIT
; Unsigned 63-bit integer
; (0 <= n <= 9,223,372,036,854,775,807)
nz-number = digit-nz *DIGIT
; Non-zero unsigned 32-bit integer
; (0 < n < 4,294,967,296)
oldname-extended-item = "OLDNAME" SP "(" mailbox ")"
; Extended data item (mbox-list-extended-item)
; returned in a LIST response when a mailbox is
; renamed or deleted. Also returned when
; the server canonicalized the provided mailbox
; name.
; Note 1: the OLDNAME tag can be returned
; with or without surrounding quotes, as per
; mbox-list-extended-item-tag production.
option-extension = (option-standard-tag / option-vendor-tag)
[SP option-value]
option-standard-tag = atom
; an option defined in a Standards Track or
; Experimental RFC
option-val-comp = astring /
option-val-comp *(SP option-val-comp) /
"(" option-val-comp ")"
option-value = "(" option-val-comp ")"
option-vendor-tag = vendor-token "-" atom
; a vendor-specific option, non-standard
partial-range = number ["." nz-number]
; Copied from RFC 5092 (IMAP URL)
partial = "<" number "." nz-number ">"
; Partial FETCH request. 0-based offset of
; the first octet, followed by the number of octets
; in the fragment.
password = astring
patterns = "(" list-mailbox ")"
; [RFC5258] supports multiple patterns,
; but this document only requires one
; to be supported.
; If the server is also implementing
; [RFC5258], "patterns" syntax from that
; document must be followed.
quoted = DQUOTE *QUOTED-CHAR DQUOTE
QUOTED-CHAR = <any TEXT-CHAR except quoted-specials> /
"\" quoted-specials / UTF8-2 / UTF8-3 / UTF8-4
quoted-specials = DQUOTE / "\"
rename = "RENAME" SP mailbox SP mailbox
; Use of INBOX as a destination gives a NO error
response = *(continue-req / response-data) response-done
response-data = "*" SP (resp-cond-state / resp-cond-bye /
mailbox-data / message-data / capability-data /
enable-data) CRLF
response-done = response-tagged / response-fatal
response-fatal = "*" SP resp-cond-bye CRLF
; Server closes connection immediately
response-tagged = tag SP resp-cond-state CRLF
resp-code-apnd = "APPENDUID" SP nz-number SP append-uid
resp-code-copy = "COPYUID" SP nz-number SP uid-set SP uid-set
resp-cond-auth = ("OK" / "PREAUTH") SP resp-text
; Authentication condition
resp-cond-bye = "BYE" SP resp-text
resp-cond-state = ("OK" / "NO" / "BAD") SP resp-text
; Status condition
resp-specials = "]"
resp-text = ["[" resp-text-code "]" SP] [text]
resp-text-code = "ALERT" /
"BADCHARSET" [SP "(" charset *(SP charset) ")" ] /
capability-data / "PARSE" /
"PERMANENTFLAGS" SP
"(" [flag-perm *(SP flag-perm)] ")" /
"READ-ONLY" / "READ-WRITE" / "TRYCREATE" /
"UIDNEXT" SP nz-number / "UIDVALIDITY" SP nz-number /
resp-code-apnd / resp-code-copy / "UIDNOTSTICKY" /
"UNAVAILABLE" / "AUTHENTICATIONFAILED" /
"AUTHORIZATIONFAILED" / "EXPIRED" /
"PRIVACYREQUIRED" / "CONTACTADMIN" / "NOPERM" /
"INUSE" / "EXPUNGEISSUED" / "CORRUPTION" /
"SERVERBUG" / "CLIENTBUG" / "CANNOT" /
"LIMIT" / "OVERQUOTA" / "ALREADYEXISTS" /
"NONEXISTENT" / "NOTSAVED" / "HASCHILDREN" /
"CLOSED" /
"UNKNOWN-CTE" /
atom [SP 1*<any TEXT-CHAR except "]">]
return-option = "SUBSCRIBED" / "CHILDREN" / status-option /
option-extension
search = "SEARCH" [search-return-opts]
SP search-program
search-correlator = SP "(" "TAG" SP tag-string ")"
search-key = "ALL" / "ANSWERED" / "BCC" SP astring /
"BEFORE" SP date / "BODY" SP astring /
"CC" SP astring / "DELETED" / "FLAGGED" /
"FROM" SP astring / "KEYWORD" SP flag-keyword /
"ON" SP date / "SEEN" /
"SINCE" SP date / "SUBJECT" SP astring /
"TEXT" SP astring / "TO" SP astring /
"UNANSWERED" / "UNDELETED" / "UNFLAGGED" /
"UNKEYWORD" SP flag-keyword / "UNSEEN" /
; Above this line were in [IMAP2]
"DRAFT" / "HEADER" SP header-fld-name SP astring /
"LARGER" SP number / "NOT" SP search-key /
"OR" SP search-key SP search-key /
"SENTBEFORE" SP date / "SENTON" SP date /
"SENTSINCE" SP date / "SMALLER" SP number /
"UID" SP sequence-set / "UNDRAFT" / sequence-set /
"(" search-key *(SP search-key) ")"
search-modifier-name = tagged-ext-label
search-mod-params = tagged-ext-val
; This non-terminal shows recommended syntax
; for future extensions.
search-program = ["CHARSET" SP charset SP]
search-key *(SP search-key)
; CHARSET argument to SEARCH MUST be
; registered with IANA.
search-ret-data-ext = search-modifier-name SP search-return-value
; Note that not every SEARCH return option
; is required to have the corresponding
; ESEARCH return data.
search-return-data = "MIN" SP nz-number /
"MAX" SP nz-number /
"ALL" SP sequence-set /
"COUNT" SP number /
search-ret-data-ext
; All return data items conform to
; search-ret-data-ext syntax.
; Note that "$" marker is not allowed
; after the ALL return data item.
search-return-opts = SP "RETURN" SP "(" [search-return-opt
*(SP search-return-opt)] ")"
search-return-opt = "MIN" / "MAX" / "ALL" / "COUNT" /
"SAVE" /
search-ret-opt-ext
; conforms to generic search-ret-opt-ext
; syntax
search-ret-opt-ext = search-modifier-name [SP search-mod-params]
search-return-value = tagged-ext-val
; Data for the returned search option.
; A single "nz-number"/"number"/"number64" value
; can be returned as an atom (i.e., without
; quoting). A sequence-set can be returned
; as an atom as well.
section = "[" [section-spec] "]"
section-binary = "[" [section-part] "]"
section-msgtext = "HEADER" / "HEADER.FIELDS" [".NOT"] SP header-list /
"TEXT"
; top-level or MESSAGE/RFC822 or MESSAGE/GLOBAL part
section-part = nz-number *("." nz-number)
; body part reference.
; Allows for accessing nested body parts.
section-spec = section-msgtext / (section-part ["." section-text])
section-text = section-msgtext / "MIME"
; text other than actual body part (headers, etc.)
select = "SELECT" SP mailbox
seq-number = nz-number / "*"
; message sequence number (COPY, FETCH, STORE
; commands) or unique identifier (UID COPY,
; UID FETCH, UID STORE commands).
; * represents the largest number in use. In
; the case of message sequence numbers, it is
; the number of messages in a non-empty mailbox.
; In the case of unique identifiers, it is the
; unique identifier of the last message in the
; mailbox or, if the mailbox is empty, the
; mailbox's current UIDNEXT value.
; The server should respond with a tagged BAD
; response to a command that uses a message
; sequence number greater than the number of
; messages in the selected mailbox. This
; includes "*" if the selected mailbox is empty.
seq-range = seq-number ":" seq-number
; two seq-number values and all values between
; these two regardless of order.
; Example: 2:4 and 4:2 are equivalent and indicate
; values 2, 3, and 4.
; Example: a unique identifier sequence range of
; 3291:* includes the UID of the last message in
; the mailbox, even if that value is less than 3291.
sequence-set = (seq-number / seq-range) ["," sequence-set]
; set of seq-number values, regardless of order.
; Servers MAY coalesce overlaps and/or execute the
; sequence in any order.
; Example: a message sequence number set of
; 2,4:7,9,12:* for a mailbox with 15 messages is
; equivalent to 2,4,5,6,7,9,12,13,14,15
; Example: a message sequence number set of *:4,5:7
; for a mailbox with 10 messages is equivalent to
; 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,5,6,7 and MAY be reordered and
; overlap coalesced to be 4,5,6,7,8,9,10.
sequence-set =/ seq-last-command
; Allow for "result of the last command" indicator.
seq-last-command = "$"
status = "STATUS" SP mailbox SP
"(" status-att *(SP status-att) ")"
status-att = "MESSAGES" / "UIDNEXT" / "UIDVALIDITY" /
"UNSEEN" / "DELETED" / "SIZE"
status-att-val = ("MESSAGES" SP number) /
("UIDNEXT" SP nz-number) /
("UIDVALIDITY" SP nz-number) /
("UNSEEN" SP number) /
("DELETED" SP number) /
("SIZE" SP number64)
; Extensions to the STATUS responses
; should extend this production.
; Extensions should use the generic
; syntax defined by tagged-ext.
status-att-list = status-att-val *(SP status-att-val)
status-option = "STATUS" SP "(" status-att *(SP status-att) ")"
; This ABNF production complies with
; <option-extension> syntax.
store = "STORE" SP sequence-set SP store-att-flags
store-att-flags = (["+" / "-"] "FLAGS" [".SILENT"]) SP
(flag-list / (flag *(SP flag)))
string = quoted / literal
subscribe = "SUBSCRIBE" SP mailbox
tag = 1*<any ASTRING-CHAR except "+">
tag-string = astring
; <tag> represented as <astring>
tagged-ext-label = tagged-label-fchar *tagged-label-char
; Is a valid RFC 3501 "atom".
tagged-label-fchar = ALPHA / "-" / "_" / "."
tagged-label-char = tagged-label-fchar / DIGIT / ":"
tagged-ext-comp = astring /
tagged-ext-comp *(SP tagged-ext-comp) /
"(" tagged-ext-comp ")"
; Extensions that follow this general
; syntax should use nstring instead of
; astring when appropriate in the context
; of the extension.
; Note that a message set or a "number"
; can always be represented as an "atom".
; An URL should be represented as
; a "quoted" string.
tagged-ext-simple = sequence-set / number / number64
tagged-ext-val = tagged-ext-simple /
"(" [tagged-ext-comp] ")"
text = 1*(TEXT-CHAR / UTF8-2 / UTF8-3 / UTF8-4)
; Non ASCII text can only be returned
; after ENABLE IMAP4rev2 command
TEXT-CHAR = <any CHAR except CR and LF>
time = 2DIGIT ":" 2DIGIT ":" 2DIGIT
; Hours minutes seconds
uid = "UID" SP
(copy / move / fetch / search / store / uid-expunge)
; Unique identifiers used instead of message
; sequence numbers
uid-expunge = "EXPUNGE" SP sequence-set
; Unique identifiers used instead of message
; sequence numbers
uid-set = (uniqueid / uid-range) *("," uid-set)
uid-range = (uniqueid ":" uniqueid)
; two uniqueid values and all values
; between these two regards of order.
; Example: 2:4 and 4:2 are equivalent.
uniqueid = nz-number
; Strictly ascending
unsubscribe = "UNSUBSCRIBE" SP mailbox
userid = astring
UTF8-2 = <Defined in Section 4 of RFC 3629>
UTF8-3 = <Defined in Section 4 of RFC 3629>
UTF8-4 = <Defined in Section 4 of RFC 3629>
vendor-token = "vendor." name-component
; Definition copied from RFC 2244.
; MUST be registered with IANA
x-command = "X" atom <experimental command arguments>
zone = ("+" / "-") 4DIGIT
; Signed four-digit value of hhmm representing
; hours and minutes east of Greenwich (that is,
; the amount that the given time differs from
; Universal Time). Subtracting the timezone
; from the given time will give the UT form.
; The Universal Time zone is "+0000".
This document is a revision or rewrite of earlier documents, and supercedes the protocol specification in those documents: RFC 3501, RFC 2060, RFC 1730, unpublished IMAP2bis.TXT document, RFC 1176, and RFC 1064.
IMAP4rev2 protocol transactions, including electronic mail data, are sent in the clear over the network unless protection from snooping is negotiated. This can be accomplished either by the use of IMAPS service, STARTTLS command, negotiated privacy protection in the AUTHENTICATE command, or some other protection mechanism.
IMAP client and server implementations MUST comply with relevant TLS recommendations from [RFC8314]. Additionally, when using TLS 1.2, IMAP implementations MUST implement TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 cipher suite, and SHOULD implement the TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA [TLS] cipher suite. This is important as it assures that any two compliant implementations can be configured to interoperate. Other TLS cipher suites recommended in RFC 7525 are RECOMMENDED: TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256, TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 and TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384. All other cipher suites are OPTIONAL. Note that this is a change from section 2.1 of [IMAP-TLS].
During the [TLS] negotiation, the client MUST check its understanding of the server hostname against the server's identity as presented in the server Certificate message, in order to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks. This procedure is described in [RFC7817].
Both the client and server MUST check the result of the STARTTLS command and subsequent [TLS] negotiation to see whether acceptable authentication and/or privacy was achieved.
The COPYUID and APPENDUID response codes return information about the mailbox, which may be considered sensitive if the mailbox has permissions set that permit the client to COPY or APPEND to the mailbox, but not SELECT or EXAMINE it.
Consequently, these response codes SHOULD NOT be issued if the client does not have access to SELECT or EXAMINE the mailbox.
In response to a LIST command containing an argument of the Other Users' Namespace prefix, a server SHOULD NOT list users that have not granted list access to their personal mailboxes to the currently authenticated user. Providing such a list, could compromise security by potentially disclosing confidential information of who is located on the server, or providing a starting point of a list of user accounts to attack.
A server error message for an AUTHENTICATE command which fails due to invalid credentials SHOULD NOT detail why the credentials are invalid.
Use of the LOGIN command sends passwords in the clear. This can be avoided by using the AUTHENTICATE command with a [SASL] mechanism that does not use plaintext passwords, by first negotiating encryption via STARTTLS or some other protection mechanism.
A server implementation MUST implement a configuration that, at the time of authentication, requires:
(1) The STARTTLS command has been negotiated.
OR
(2) Some other mechanism that protects the session from password snooping has been provided.
OR
(3) The following measures are in place:
(a) The LOGINDISABLED capability is advertised, and [SASL] mechanisms (such as PLAIN) using plaintext passwords are NOT advertised in the CAPABILITY list.
AND
(b) The LOGIN command returns an error even if the password is correct.
AND
(c) The AUTHENTICATE command returns an error with all [SASL] mechanisms that use plaintext passwords, even if the password is correct.
A server error message for a failing LOGIN command SHOULD NOT specify that the user name, as opposed to the password, is invalid.
A server SHOULD have mechanisms in place to limit or delay failed AUTHENTICATE/LOGIN attempts.
Additional security considerations are discussed in the section discussing the AUTHENTICATE (see Section 6.2.2) and LOGIN (see Section 6.2.3) commands.
IANA is requested to update "Service Names and Transport Protocol Port Numbers" registry as follows:
Additional IANA actions are specified in subsection of this section.
IMAP4 capabilities are registered by publishing a standards track or IESG approved informational or experimental RFC. The registry is currently located at: https://www.iana.org/assignments/imap4-capabilities
As this specification revises the AUTH= prefix, STARTTLS and LOGINDISABLED extensions previously defined in [IMAP-TLS], IANA is requested to update registry entries for these 3 extensions to point to this document.
GSSAPI/Kerberos/SASL service names are registered by publishing a standards track or IESG approved experimental RFC. The registry is currently located at: https://www.iana.org/assignments/gssapi-service-names
IANA is requested to update the "imap" service name previously registered in RFC 3501, to point to this document.
[RFC5258] specifies IANA registration procedures for LIST Selection Options, LIST Return Options, LIST extended data items. This document doesn't change these registration procedures. In particular LIST selection options Section 6.3.9.1 and LIST return options Section 6.3.9.2 are registered using the procedure specified in Section 9 of [RFC5258] (and using the registration template from Section 9.3 of [RFC5258]). LIST Extended Data Items are registered using the registration template from Section 9.6 of [RFC5258]).
IANA is requested to add a reference to [RFCXXXX] for the "OLDNAME" LIST-EXTENDED extended data item entry. This is in addition to the existing reference to [RFC5465].
| [RFC3503] | Melnikov, A., "Message Disposition Notification (MDN) profile for Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)", RFC 3503, DOI 10.17487/RFC3503, March 2003. |
| [RFC5256] | Crispin, M. and K. Murchison, "Internet Message Access Protocol - SORT and THREAD Extensions", RFC 5256, DOI 10.17487/RFC5256, June 2008. |
| [RFC2193] | Gahrns, M., "IMAP4 Mailbox Referrals", RFC 2193, DOI 10.17487/RFC2193, September 1997. |
| [RFC3348] | Gahrns, M. and R. Cheng, "The Internet Message Action Protocol (IMAP4) Child Mailbox Extension", RFC 3348, DOI 10.17487/RFC3348, July 2002. |
| [RFC5465] | Gulbrandsen, A., King, C. and A. Melnikov, "The IMAP NOTIFY Extension", RFC 5465, DOI 10.17487/RFC5465, February 2009. |
| [RFC7888] | Melnikov, A., "IMAP4 Non-synchronizing Literals", RFC 7888, DOI 10.17487/RFC7888, May 2016. |
| [IMAP-DISC] | Melnikov, A., "Synchronization Operations for Disconnected IMAP4 Clients", RFC 4549, June 2006. |
| [IMAP-I18N] | Newman, C., Gulbrandsen, A. and A. Melnikov, "Internet Message Access Protocol Internationalization", RFC 5255, DOI 10.17487/RFC5255, June 2008. |
| [IMAP-MODEL] | Crispin, M., "Distributed Electronic Mail Models in IMAP4", RFC 1733, December 1994. |
| [IMAP-UTF-8] | Resnick, P., Newman, C. and S. Shen, "IMAP Support for UTF-8", RFC 6855, DOI 10.17487/RFC6855, March 2013. |
| [SMTP] | Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 5321, October 2008. |
| [RFC3516] | Nerenberg, L., "IMAP4 Binary Content Extension", RFC 3516, DOI 10.17487/RFC3516, April 2003. |
| [RFC4314] | Melnikov, A., "IMAP4 Access Control List (ACL) Extension", RFC 4314, December 2005. |
| [RFC2087] | Myers, J., "IMAP4 QUOTA extension", RFC 2087, January 1997. |
| [IMAP-URL] | Melnikov, A. and C. Newman, "IMAP URL Scheme", RFC 5092, DOI 10.17487/RFC5092, November 2007. |
| [IMAP-KEYWORDS-REG] | IANA, "IMAP and JMAP Keywords", December 2009. |
| [IMAP-MAILBOX-NAME-ATTRS-REG] | IANA, "IMAP Mailbox Name Attributes", June 2018. |
| [CHARSET-REG] | IANA, "Character Set Registrations", May 2015. |
| [RFC3501] | Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION 4rev1", RFC 3501, DOI 10.17487/RFC3501, March 2003. |
| [IMAP-COMPAT] | Crispin, M., "IMAP4 Compatibility with IMAP2bis", RFC 2061, December 1996. |
| [IMAP-HISTORICAL] | Crispin, M., "IMAP4 Compatibility with IMAP2 and IMAP2bis", RFC 1732, December 1994. |
| [IMAP-OBSOLETE] | Crispin, M., "Internet Message Access Protocol - Obsolete Syntax", RFC 2062, December 1996. |
| [IMAP2] | Crispin, M., "Interactive Mail Access Protocol: Version 2", RFC 1176, August 1990. |
| [RFC-822] | Crocker, D., "STANDARD FOR THE FORMAT OF ARPA INTERNET TEXT MESSAGES", STD 11, RFC 822, August 1982. |
| [IMAP-TLS] | Newman, C., "Using TLS with IMAP, POP3 and ACAP", RFC 2595, June 1999. |
An implementation that wants to remain compatible with IMAP4rev1 can advertise both IMAP4rev1 and IMAP4rev2 in its CAPABILITY response/response code. While some IMAP4rev1 responses were removed in IMAP4rev2, their presence will not break IMAP4rev2-only clients.
If both IMAP4rev1 and IMAP4rev2 are advertised, an IMAP client that wants to use IMAP4rev2 MUST issue an "ENABLE IMAP4rev2" command.
Servers advertising both IMAP4rev1 and IMAP4rev2 MUST NOT generate UTF-8 quoted strings unless the client has issued "ENABLE IMAP4rev2". Consider implementation of mechanisms described or referenced in [IMAP-UTF-8] to achieve this goal.
Servers advertising both IMAP4rev1 and IMAP4rev2, and clients intending to be compatible with IMAP4rev1 servers MUST be compatible with the international mailbox naming convention described in the following subsection.
Support for the Mailbox International Naming Convention described in this section is not required for IMAP4rev2-only clients and servers.
By convention, international mailbox names in IMAP4rev1 are specified using a modified version of the UTF-7 encoding described in [UTF-7]. Modified UTF-7 may also be usable in servers that implement an earlier version of this protocol.
In modified UTF-7, printable US-ASCII characters, except for "&", represent themselves; that is, characters with octet values 0x20-0x25 and 0x27-0x7e. The character "&" (0x26) is represented by the two-octet sequence "&-".
All other characters (octet values 0x00-0x1f and 0x7f-0xff) are represented in modified BASE64, with a further modification from [UTF-7] that "," is used instead of "/". Modified BASE64 MUST NOT be used to represent any printing US-ASCII character which can represent itself. Only characters inside the modified BASE64 alphabet are permitted in modified BASE64 text.
"&" is used to shift to modified BASE64 and "-" to shift back to US-ASCII. There is no implicit shift from BASE64 to US-ASCII, and null shifts ("-&" while in BASE64; note that "&-" while in US-ASCII means "&") are not permitted. However, all names start in US-ASCII, and MUST end in US-ASCII; that is, a name that ends with a non-ASCII ISO-10646 character MUST end with a "-").
The purpose of these modifications is to correct the following problems with UTF-7:
Although modified UTF-7 is a convention, it establishes certain requirements on server handling of any mailbox name with an embedded "&" character. In particular, server implementations MUST preserve the exact form of the modified BASE64 portion of a modified UTF-7 name and treat that text as case-sensitive, even if names are otherwise case-insensitive or case-folded.
Server implementations SHOULD verify that any mailbox name with an embedded "&" character, used as an argument to CREATE, is: in the correctly modified UTF-7 syntax, has no superfluous shifts, and has no encoding in modified BASE64 of any printing US-ASCII character which can represent itself. However, client implementations MUST NOT depend upon the server doing this, and SHOULD NOT attempt to create a mailbox name with an embedded "&" character unless it complies with the modified UTF-7 syntax.
Server implementations which export a mail store that does not follow the modified UTF-7 convention MUST convert to modified UTF-7 any mailbox name that contains either non-ASCII characters or the "&" character.
IMAP4rev2 is incorporates subset of functionality provided by the BINARY extension [RFC3516], in particular it includes additional FETCH items (BINARY, BINARY.PEEK and BINARY.SIZE), but not extensions to the APPEND command. IMAP4rev2 implementations that supports full RFC 3516 functionality need to also advertise the BINARY token in the CAPABILITY response.
IMAP4rev2 is incorporates most of functionality provided by the LIST-EXTENDED extension [RFC5258]. In particular, multiple mailbox patterns syntax is not supported in IMAP4rev2, unless LIST-EXTENDED capability is also advertised in CAPABILITY response/response code.
The following is the plan for remaining changes. The plan might change over time.
The following changes were already done:
The following changes since RFC 3501 were done so far:
Earlier versions of this document were edited by Mark Crispin. Sadly, he is no longer available to help with this work. Editors of this revisions are hoping that Mark would have approved.
Chris Newman has contributed text on I18N and use of UTF-8 in messages and mailbox names.
Thank you to Tony Hansen for helping with the index generation. Thank you to Timo Sirainen, Bron Gondwana, Stephan Bosch and Arnt Gulbrandsen for extensive feedback.
This document incorporate text from RFC 4315 (by Mark Crispin), RFC 4466 (by Cyrus Daboo), RFC 4731 (by Dave Cridland), RFC 5161 (by Arnt Gulbrandsen), RFC 5465 (by Arnt Gulbrandsen and Curtis King), RFC 5530 (by Arnt Gulbrandsen), RFC 5819 (by Timo Sirainen), RFC 6154 (by Jamie Nicolson), RFC 8438 (by Stephan Bosch) so work done by authors/editors of these documents is appreciated. Note that editors of this document were redacted from the above list.
The CHILDREN return option was originally proposed by Mike Gahrns and Raymond Cheng in [RFC3348]. Most of the information in Section 6.3.9.5 is taken directly from their original specification [RFC3348].