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>> IMAP clients typically refer to messages by their “sequence number” […] > Holy F what a clusterfuck Or you could use the unique identifier of the message (

>> IMAP clients typically refer to messages by their “sequence number” […] > Holy F what a clusterfuck Or you could use the unique identifier of the message (UID) instead of the sequence number: > Messages in IMAP4rev1 are accessed by one of two numbers; the unique identifier or the message sequence number. * https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3501#section-2.3.1 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3501#section-2.3.1 > A 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. * https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3501#section-2.3.1.1 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3501#section-2.3.1.1 The designers of the IMAP protocol aren't as dumb as the above quotation would have you to believe and multi-client operations were thought of.

meghan_rain 4y ago
The UID capability is a newer, hail-mary attempt to fix the issue, and thus it's optional, not all IMAP servers support it
- tedivm 4y ago
  I wrote a popular open source IMAP library in 2009 and even then the UID capability was there and widely adopted. My library relied on it 100%, completely ignoring sequence numbers, and I haven't received a single issue related to this. It's not that new, it's not a hail mary, and it is very well supported. * https://packagist.org/packages/tedivm/fetch https://packagist.org/packages/tedivm/fetch * https://github.com/tedious/Fetch https://github.com/tedious/Fetch
  - lsh123 4y ago
    Last time I was writing mail client code was around 2004-2005 and even around that time every large IMAP provider (AOL, Yahoo, …) had UID support.
- citrin_ru 4y ago
  Newer as in only ~30 years old? It is likely some obscure IMAP servers doesn't support them but AFAIK all popular ones do.
- vidarh 4y ago
  UID was introduced in IMAPv4 in RFC 1730 in 1994, and it's not optional for IMAPv4 or IMAPv4.1 I last wrote IMAP server-side software in 2000. Even then, I was not aware of any IMAP servers that didn't support UID. It was essential, as most clients expected it to be there. There might still have been some at that point, but I'd be shocked if anyone is still running any IMAP2 or IMAP3 servers.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nerdbert 4y ago
  I've worked on a lot of IMAP stuff and it's been decades since I've seen an implementation that didn't support reference by UID.

meghan_rain 4y ago

The UID capability is a newer, hail-mary attempt to fix the issue, and thus it's optional, not all IMAP servers support it

tedivm 4y ago
I wrote a popular open source IMAP library in 2009 and even then the UID capability was there and widely adopted. My library relied on it 100%, completely ignoring sequence numbers, and I haven't received a single issue related to this. It's not that new, it's not a hail mary, and it is very well supported. * https://packagist.org/packages/tedivm/fetch https://packagist.org/packages/tedivm/fetch * https://github.com/tedious/Fetch https://github.com/tedious/Fetch
- lsh123 4y ago
  Last time I was writing mail client code was around 2004-2005 and even around that time every large IMAP provider (AOL, Yahoo, …) had UID support.
citrin_ru 4y ago
Newer as in only ~30 years old? It is likely some obscure IMAP servers doesn't support them but AFAIK all popular ones do.
vidarh 4y ago
UID was introduced in IMAPv4 in RFC 1730 in 1994, and it's not optional for IMAPv4 or IMAPv4.1 I last wrote IMAP server-side software in 2000. Even then, I was not aware of any IMAP servers that didn't support UID. It was essential, as most clients expected it to be there. There might still have been some at that point, but I'd be shocked if anyone is still running any IMAP2 or IMAP3 servers.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nerdbert 4y ago
I've worked on a lot of IMAP stuff and it's been decades since I've seen an implementation that didn't support reference by UID.