How to allow users to chnage the order of the default folders (Sent, Junk, etc.) in mail clients for accounts hosted in Plesk

Question

Default mail folders (Drafts, Sent, Spam, etc.) are automatically listed as subfolders of Inbox in email clients (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.) and can't be re-arranged.

How to move the default folders out from the Inbox in email clients?

Answer

By default, on a Plesk for Linux server, Dovecot stores the mail folders in the "Inbox" folder.

This behavior can be changed by editing prefix in Dovecot namespace configuration:

1. Connect to your Plesk server via SSH.

2. Create a new .conf file for Dovecot, for example:

   # touch /etc/dovecot/conf.d/98-custom-namespace.conf

3. Open it in a text editor. In this example, we are using vi editor:

   # vi /etc/dovecot/conf.d/98-custom-namespace.conf

4. Add the following namespace configuration:

   CONFIG_TEXT: namespace inbox {
    separator = .
    prefix =
    inbox = yes
   
   mailbox Sent {
      auto = subscribe # autocreate and autosubscribe the Sent mailbox
      special_use = \Sent
    }
    mailbox Spam {
      auto = create # autocreate Spam, but don't autosubscribe
      special_use = \Junk
    }
    mailbox Drafts {
      auto = create
      special_use = \Drafts
    }
    mailbox Trash {
      auto = create
      special_use = \Trash
    }
   }

   Here, we remove the prefix "INBOX".
   This configuration will override the default namespace configuration in  /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf.

5. Save the changes and close the file.

6. Apply the new configuration changes using the plesk repair mail utility:

   # plesk repair mail -y

Per-client solution