{"id":700,"date":"2010-03-22T20:57:55","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T18:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/?p=700"},"modified":"2023-03-24T13:54:13","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T11:54:13","slug":"localized-gmail-imap-folders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/localized-gmail-imap-folders","title":{"rendered":"Localized Gmail IMAP folders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n


There are no well-know names for common folders<\/strong> such as Drafts, Trash, Spam, … on IMAP servers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is even worse when you use localized version of IMAP client. Gmail folder names are localized<\/strong> with respect to the user localization settings, so ‘[Gmail]\/All Mail’ show as ‘[Gmail]\/Todos’ to Spanish users for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google and Apple developed a special IMAP XLIST command to address this issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IMAP XLIST<\/strong> command returns a list of folders and their well-know flags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s the sample XLIST response:<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nC: A001 CAPABILITY
\nS: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 ID XLIST ...
\nS: A001 OK Thats all she wrote! 17if1168678ebj.35
\nC: A002 XLIST \"\" \"*\"
\nS: * XLIST (\\HasNoChildren \\Inbox) \"\/\" \"Inbox\"
\nS: * XLIST (\\HasNoChildren \\AllMail) \"\/\" \"[Gmail]\/All Mail\"
\nS: * XLIST (\\HasNoChildren \\Drafts) \"\/\" \"[Gmail]\/Drafts\"
\nS: * XLIST (\\HasNoChildren \\Spam) \"\/\" \"[Gmail]\/Spam\"
\n...
\n<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you can see XLIST is advertised in CAPABILITY response.
You can probably spot additional flags in the XLIST response: \\AllMail, \\Spam, \\Drafts…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mail.dll IMAP library<\/a> supports XLIST<\/strong> command (and SPECIAL-USE extension). It is used automatically when server advertises support for this feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can use CommonFolders <\/em>class to match folder names with they real purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take a look at the examples:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\/\/ C# version:\n\nusing (Imap imap = new Imap())\n{\n    imap.ConnectSSL(\"imap.gmail.com\");\n    imap.UseBestLogin(\"pat@gmail.com\", \"app-password\");\n\n    CommonFolders folders = new CommonFolders(imap.GetFolders());\n\n    Console.WriteLine(\"Inbox folder: \" + folders.Inbox.Name);\n    Console.WriteLine(\"Sent folder: \" + folders.Sent.Name);\n\n    \/\/ You can select folders easy:\n\n    imap.Select(folders.Inbox);\n    imap.Select(folders.Sent);\n\n    imap.Close();\n}\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n
\n' VB.NET version:\n\nUsing imap As New Imap()\n    imap.ConnectSSL(\"imap.gmail.com\")\n    imap.UseBestLogin(\"pat@gmail\", \"app-password\")\n\n    Dim folders As New CommonFolders(imap.GetFolders())\n\n    Console.WriteLine(\"Inbox folder: \" + folders.Inbox.Name)\n    Console.WriteLine(\"Sent folder: \" + folders.Sent.Name)\n\n    ' You can select folders easy:\n\n    imap.Select(folders.Inbox)\n    imap.Select(folders.Sent)\n\n    imap.Close()\nEnd Using\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
Remember to enable IMAP in Gmail<\/a> (your authentication options are app-passwords and OAuth 2.0).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are no well-know names for common folders such as Drafts, Trash, Spam, … on IMAP servers. The problem is even worse when you use localized version of IMAP client. Gmail folder names are localized with respect to the user localization settings, so ‘[Gmail]\/All Mail’ show as ‘[Gmail]\/Todos’ to Spanish users for example. Google and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[25,28,77,67],"class_list":["post-700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mail-dll","tag-gmail","tag-imap","tag-imap-component","tag-xlist"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6450,"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700\/revisions\/6450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}