Problem

I would like to create some subfolders within imap. How can i do that?

Solution

Since our Mail infrastructure is using the Mbox format every folder you see is in reality one file. This restricts your email client to only create one subfolder without any subsubfolders.

But since your Emails are all stored in ~/Mail you can manually create some subfolders. In these "real" subfolders your email program can then create one level of subfolders. If you need more subfolder-depth you can create them manually.

See the following example on how to create a classes folder which then contains some subfolders ans subsubfolders.

• open a Terminal and change into the Mail directory.

cd
cd Mail

• If you type ls you should see the files which represent the folders in your email program.

user@machine:~/Mail $ ls
Junk   Membership   Sent   Tickets   Drafts   Templates   Trash

• We want a classes directory which then contains a file for each class (class-a, class-b and class-c).

mkdir classes
touch classes/class-{a,b,c}

• to create another subfolder into the classes subfolder do the same steps.

mkdir classes/bigclass
touch classes/bigclass/{males,females}

• The structure should now look like the following:

maegger@rista:~/Mail $ ls * */*
Junk   Membership   Sent   Tickets   Drafts   Templates   Trash

classes:
bigclass/  class-a  class-b  class-c

classes/bigclass:
females  males

• Depending on the program you are using to view your mails you have maybe to subscribe to folders (e.g. thunderbird). In other cases (e.g. if you are using webmail ) the new folders are still visible after you login.

• Screenshot of Thunderbird
  

• Screenshot of Webmail