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IETF RFC 5232
Sieve Email Filtering: Imap4flags Extension
Last modified on Monday, January 7th, 2008
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Network Working Group A. Melnikov
Request for Comments: 5232 Isode Limited
Category: Standards Track January 2008
Sieve Email Filtering: Imap4flags Extension
 Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
Recent discussions have shown that it is desirable to set different
IMAP (RFC 3501) flags on message delivery. This can be done, for
example, by a Sieve interpreter that works as a part of a Mail
Delivery Agent.
This document describes an extension to the Sieve mail filtering
language for setting IMAP flags. The extension allows setting of
both IMAP system flags and IMAP keywords.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
1.1. Conventions Used ...........................................2
2. General Requirements for Flag Handling ..........................3
3. Actions .........................................................3
3.1. Action setflag .............................................4
3.2. Action addflag .............................................4
3.3. Action removeflag ..........................................5
4. Test hasflag ....................................................6
5. Tagged Argument :flags ..........................................7
6. Interaction with Other Sieve Actions ............................8
7. Security Considerations .........................................8
8. IANA Considerations .............................................8
9. Extended Example ................................................8
10. Acknowledgments ...............................................10
11. Normative References ..........................................10
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RFC 5232 Sieve: Imap4flags Extension January 2008
1. Introduction
This is an extension to the Sieve language defined by [SIEVE] for
setting [IMAP] flags. It adds a new tagged argument to "keep" and
"fileinto" that describes the list of flags that have to be set when
the message is delivered to the specified mailbox. It also adds
several actions to help manipulate list of flags and a test to check
whether a flag belongs to a list.
From the user's perspective, this extension provides several
capabilities. First, it allows manipulation of sets of IMAP flags.
Second, it gives the ability to associate a set of IMAP flags with a
message that is delivered to a mailstore using the keep/fileinto
actions. Third, it maintains an internal variable. The internal
variable contains the default flags that will be associated with a
message that is delivered using the keep, implicit keep, or fileinto
actions, when the :flags tagged argument is not specified. When the
Sieve [VARIABLES] extension is also supported by the Sieve engine, it
enables support for multiple variables containing sets of IMAP flags.
The capability string associated with the extension defined in this
document is "imap4flags". All conformant implementations MUST
implement all Sieve actions (setflag, addflag, removeflag), the
"hasflag" test, and the ":flags" tagged argument described in this
document.
The "imap4flags" extension can be used with or without the
"variables" extension [VARIABLES]. When the "variables" extension is
enabled in a script using <require "variables">, the script can use
explicit variable names in setflag/addflag/removeflag actions and the
hasflag test. See also Section 3 for more details. When the
"variables" extension is not enabled, the explicit variable name
parameter to setflag/addflag/removeflag/hasflag MUST NOT be used and
MUST cause an error according to [SIEVE].
1.1. Conventions Used
Conventions for notations are as in [SIEVE], Section 1.1, including
use of "Usage:" label for the definition of action and tagged
arguments syntax.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
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RFC 5232 Sieve: Imap4flags Extension January 2008
2. General Requirements for Flag Handling
The following notes apply to processing of addflag/removeflag/setflag
actions, the "hasflag" test and the ":flags" tagged argument.
A Sieve interpreter MUST ignore empty strings (i.e., "") in a list-
of-flags parameter.
A string containing a space-separated list of flag names is
equivalent to a string list consisting of the flags. This
requirement is to simplify amalgamation of multiple flag lists.
The Sieve interpreter SHOULD check the list of flags for validity as
described by [IMAP] ABNF. In particular, according to [IMAP], non-
ASCII characters are not allowed in flag names. However, spaces MUST
always be allowed as delimiters in strings representing a list of
flags. In such strings, multiple spaces between flag names MUST be
treated as a single space character, and leading and trailing spaces
MUST be ignored.
If a flag validity check fails, the flag MUST be ignored.
Note that it is not possible to use this extension to set or clear
the \Recent flag or any other special system flag that is not
settable in [IMAP]. Any such flags MUST be ignored if included in a
flag list.
3. Actions
All actions described in this specification (setflag, addflag,
removeflag) operate on string variables that contain a set of [IMAP]
flags. On variable substitution, a set of flags is represented as a
string containing a space-separated list of flag names.
Any setflag/addflag/removeflag action MAY alter the flag list in any
way that leaves its semantics as a set of case-insensitive words
unaltered. For example, it may reorder the flags, alter the case of
the letters in them, or add or remove duplicates or extraneous
spaces. Scripts MUST NOT make assumptions about the ordering of
flags in lists or the preservation of their case.
Note that the parameter specifying a variable name to
setflag/addflag/removeflag actions and the hasflag test is optional.
If the parameter is not specified, the actions operate on the
internal variable, which has the empty value when the script starts
execution. If the SIEVE interpreter doesn't support the "variables"
extension [VARIABLES], the presence of the variable name parameter
will cause a runtime error [SIEVE].
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RFC 5232 Sieve: Imap4flags Extension January 2008
The "addflag" action adds flags to an existing set. The "removeflag"
action removes flags from an existing set. The "setflag" action
replaces an existing set of flags with a new set. The "set" action
defined in [VARIABLES] can be used to replace an existing set of
flags with a new set as well. However, it should be noted that the
"set" action can't perform any flag reordering, duplicate
elimination, etc.
The :flags tagged argument to "keep" and "fileinto" actions is used
to associate a set of flags with the current message. If the :flags
tagged argument is not specified with those two actions, the current
value of the internal variable is used instead. The value of the
internal variable also applies to the implicit keep.
Note that when keep/fileinto is used multiple times in a script and
duplicate message elimination is performed (as described in Section
2.10.3 of [SIEVE]), the last flag list value MUST win.
3.1. Action setflag
Usage: setflag [<variablename: string>]
<list-of-flags: string-list>
Setflag is used for setting [IMAP] system flags or keywords.
Setflag replaces any previously set flags.
Example: if size :over 500K {
setflag "\\Deleted";
}
A more substantial example is the following:
Example:
if header :contains "from" "boss@frobnitzm.example.edu" {
setflag "flagvar" "\\Flagged";
fileinto :flags "${flagvar}" "INBOX.From Boss";
}
3.2. Action addflag
Usage: addflag [<variablename: string>]
<list-of-flags: string-list>
Addflag is used to add flags to a list of [IMAP] flags. It doesn't
replace any previously set flags. This means that multiple
occurrences of addflag are treated additively.
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RFC 5232 Sieve: Imap4flags Extension January 2008
The following examples demonstrate requirements described in Section
2.1. The following two actions
addflag "flagvar" "\\Deleted";
addflag "flagvar" "\\Answered";
produce the same result as the single action
addflag "flagvar" ["\\Deleted", "\\Answered"];
or
addflag "flagvar" "\\Deleted \\Answered";
or
addflag "flagvar" "\\Answered \\Deleted";
3.3. Action removeflag
Usage: removeflag [<variablename: string>]
<list-of-flags: string-list>
Removeflag is used to remove flags from a list of [IMAP] flags.
Removeflag clears flags previously set by "set"/"addflag". Calling
removeflag with a flag that wasn't set before is not an error and is
ignored. Note that if an implementation doesn't perform automatic
duplicate elimination, it MUST remove all occurrences of the flags
specified in the second parameter to removeflag. Empty strings in
the list-of-flags MUST be ignored. Also note that flag names are
case-insensitive, as described in [IMAP]. Multiple removeflag
actions are treated additively.
Example:
if header :contains "Disposition-Notification-To"
"mel@example.com" {
addflag "flagvar" "$MDNRequired";
}
if header :contains "from" "imap@cac.washington.example.edu" {
removeflag "flagvar" "$MDNRequired";
fileinto :flags "${flagvar}" "INBOX.imap-list";
}
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RFC 5232 Sieve: Imap4flags Extension January 2008
4. Test hasflag
Usage: hasflag [MATCH-TYPE] [COMPARATOR]
[<variable-list: string-list>]
<list-of-flags: string-list>
The hasflag test evaluates to true if any of the variables matches
any flag name. The type of match defaults to ":is". If the list of
variables is omitted, value of the internal variable is used instead.
The default comparator is "i;ascii-casemap", which is the same case-
insensitive comparison as defined for IMAP flags by [IMAP].
The "relational" extension [RELATIONAL] adds a match type called
":count". The :count of a variable returns the number of distinct
flags in it. The count of a list of variables is the sum of the
counts of the member variables.
Example:
If the internal variable has the value "A B", the following test
hasflag :is "b A"
evaluates to true. The above test can also be written as
hasflag ["b","A"]
Example:
If the variable "MyVar" has value "NonJunk Junk gnus-forward
$Forwarded NotJunk JunkRecorded $Junk $NotJunk", the following
tests evaluate to true:
hasflag :contains "MyVar" "Junk"
hasflag :contains "MyVar" "forward"
hasflag :contains "MyVar" ["label", "forward"]
hasflag :contains "MyVar" ["junk", "forward"]
Note that the last of these tests can be rewritten
as
hasflag :contains "MyVar" "junk forward"
or
hasflag :contains "MyVar" "forward junk"
However, the last two forms are not recommended.
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RFC 5232 Sieve: Imap4flags Extension January 2008
And the following tests will evaluate to false:
hasflag :contains "MyVar" "label"
hasflag :contains "MyVar" ["label1", "label2"]
Example:
If the variable "MyFlags" has the value "A B", the following test
hasflag :count "ge" :comparator "i;ascii-numeric"
"MyFlags" "2"
evaluates to true, as the variable contains 2 distinct flags.
5. Tagged Argument :flags
This specification adds a new optional tagged argument ":flags" that
alters the behavior of actions "keep" and "fileinto".
The :flags tagged argument specifies that the flags provided in the
subsequent argument should be set when fileinto/keep delivers the
message to the target mailbox/user's main mailbox. If the :flags
tagged argument is not specified, "keep" or "fileinto" will use the
current value of the internal variable when delivering the message to
the target mailbox.
Usage: ":flags" <list-of-flags: string-list>
The copy of the message filed into the mailbox will have only flags
listed after the :flags tagged argument.
The Sieve interpreter MUST ignore all flags that it can't store
permanently. This means that the interpreter MUST NOT treat failure
to store any flag as a runtime failure to execute the Sieve script.
For example, if the mailbox "INBOX.From Boss" can't store any flags,
then
fileinto :flags "\\Deleted" "INBOX.From Boss";
and
fileinto "INBOX.From Boss";
are equivalent.
This document doesn't dictate how the Sieve interpreter will set the
[IMAP] flags. In particular, the Sieve interpreter may work as an
IMAP client or may have direct access to the mailstore.
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RFC 5232 Sieve: Imap4flags Extension January 2008
6. Interaction with Other Sieve Actions
This extension works only on the message that is currently being
processed by Sieve; it doesn't affect another message generated as a
side effect of any action or any other message already in the
mailstore.
The extension described in this document doesn't change the implicit
keep (see Section 2.10.2 of [SIEVE]).
7. Security Considerations
Security considerations are discussed in [IMAP], [SIEVE], and
[VARIABLES].
This extension intentionally doesn't allow setting [IMAP] flags on an
arbitrary message in the [IMAP] message store.
It is believed that this extension doesn't introduce any additional
security concerns.
8. IANA Considerations
The following template specifies the IANA registration of the
variables Sieve extension specified in this document:
To: iana@iana.org
Subject: Registration of new Sieve extension
Capability name: imap4flags
Description: Adds actions and tests for manipulating IMAP flags
RFC number: RFC 5232
Contact address: The Sieve discussion list <ietf-mta-filters@imc.org>
This information has been added to the list of Sieve extensions given
on http://www.iana.org/assignments/sieve-extensions.
9. Extended Example
#
# Example Sieve Filter
# Declare any optional features or extension used by the script
#
require ["fileinto", "imap4flags", "variables"];
#
# Move large messages to a special mailbox
#
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RFC 5232 Sieve: Imap4flags Extension January 2008
if size :over 1M
{
addflag "MyFlags" "Big";
if header :is "From" "boss@company.example.com"
{
# The message will be marked as "\Flagged Big" when filed into
# mailbox "Big messages"
addflag "MyFlags" "\\Flagged";
}
fileinto :flags "${MyFlags}" "Big messages";
}
if header :is "From" "grandma@example.net"
{
addflag "MyFlags" ["\\Answered", "$MDNSent"];
# If the message is bigger than 1Mb it will be marked as
# "Big \Answered $MDNSent" when filed into mailbox "grandma".
# If the message is shorter than 1Mb it will be marked as
# "\Answered $MDNSent"
fileinto :flags "${MyFlags}" "GrandMa";
}
#
# Handle messages from known mailing lists
# Move messages from IETF filter discussion list to filter folder
#
if header :is "Sender" "owner-ietf-mta-filters@example.org"
{
set "MyFlags" "\\Flagged $Work";
# Message will have both "\Flagged" and $Work flags
keep :flags "${MyFlags}";
}
#
# Keep all messages to or from people in my company
#
elsif anyof address :domain :is ["From", "To"] "company.example.com"
{
keep :flags "${MyFlags}"; # keep in "Inbox" folder
}
# Try to catch unsolicited email. If a message is not to me,
# or it contains a subject known to be spam, file it away.
#
elsif anyof (not address :all :contains
["To", "Cc"] "me@company.example.com",
header :matches "subject"
["*make*money*fast*", "*university*dipl*mas*"])
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RFC 5232 Sieve: Imap4flags Extension January 2008
{
remove "MyFlags" "\\Flagged";
fileinto :flags "${MyFlags}" "spam";
}
else
{
# Move all other external mail to "personal"
# folder.
fileinto :flags "${MyFlags}" "personal";
}
10. Acknowledgments
This document has been revised in part based on comments and
discussions that took place on and off the Sieve mailing list.
The help of those who took the time to review the document and make
suggestions is appreciated, especially that of Tim Showalter, Barry
Leiba, Randall Gellens, Ken Murchison, Cyrus Daboo, Matthew Elvey,
Jutta Degener, Ned Freed, Marc Mutz, Nigel Swinson, Kjetil Torgrim
Homme, Mark E. Mallett, Dave Cridland, Arnt Gulbrandsen, Philip
Guenther, Rob Austein, Sam Hartman, Eric Gray, and Cullen Jennings.
Special thanks to Tony Hansen and David Lamb for helping me better
explain the concept.
11. Normative References
[SIEVE] Guenther, P., Ed., and T. Showalter, Ed., "Sieve: An
Email Filtering Language", RFC 5228, January 2008.
[IMAP] Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION
4rev1", RFC 3501, March 2003.
[VARIABLES] Homme, K., "Sieve Email Filtering: Variables Extension",
RFC 5229, January 2008.
[RELATIONAL] Segmuller, W. and B. Leiba "Sieve Email Filtering:
Relational Extension", RFC 5231, January 2008.
Melnikov Standards Track PAGE 10
RFC 5232 Sieve: Imap4flags Extension January 2008
Author's Address
Alexey Melnikov
Isode Limited
5 Castle Business Village
Hampton, Middlesex
United Kingdom, TW12 2BX
EMail: alexey.melnikov@isode.com
Melnikov Standards Track PAGE 11
RFC 5232 Sieve: Imap4flags Extension January 2008
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright © The IETF Trust (2008).
This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
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Melnikov Standards Track PAGE 12
Sieve Email Filtering: Imap4flags Extension
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 21964 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Monday, January 7th, 2008
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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