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IETF RFC 8579
Last modified on Saturday, May 11th, 2019
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) S. Bosch
Request for Comments: 8579 Open Xchange Oy
Category: Standards Track May 2019
ISSN: 2070-1721
Sieve Email Filtering: Delivering to Special-Use Mailboxes
 Abstract
The SPECIAL-USE capability of the IMAP protocol (RFC 6154) allows
clients to identify special-use mailboxes, e.g., where draft or sent
messages should be put. This simplifies client configuration. In
contrast, the Sieve mail filtering language (RFC 5228) currently has
no such capability. This memo defines a Sieve extension that fills
this gap: it adds a test for checking whether a special-use attribute
is assigned for a particular mailbox or any mailbox, and it adds the
ability to file messages into a mailbox identified solely by a
special-use attribute.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8579.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2019 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Bosch Standards Track PAGE 1 
RFC 8579 Sieve: Special-Use Mailboxes May 2019
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Test "specialuse_exists" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1. Equivalent IMAP Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. ":specialuse" Argument to "fileinto" Command . . . . . . . . 5
4.1. Mailboxes Created Implicitly by the "fileinto" Command . 6
4.2. Equivalent IMAP Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Sieve Capability Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1. Introduction
Commonly, several mailboxes in an IMAP message store [IMAP] have a
special use. For example, there can be a special-use mailbox for
storing the user's draft messages, for keeping copies of sent
messages, and for collecting spam messages that were classified as
such at delivery. The SPECIAL-USE capability [SPECIAL-USE] of the
IMAP protocol defines mailbox attributes that identify these special
mailboxes explicitly to the client. This way, client configuration
is simplified significantly. Using the CREATE-SPECIAL-USE capability
[SPECIAL-USE], IMAP clients can also configure these attributes
dynamically based on user preference.
Unlike the IMAP protocol, the Sieve mail filtering language [SIEVE]
currently cannot freely access these special-use mailbox attributes.
Particularly, the Sieve interpreter has no means to identify a
mailbox with a particular special-use attribute. This would be very
useful, for example, to find the user's "Spam" mailbox at delivery.
In Sieve, limited access to the special-use attributes is provided
using the "mboxmetadata" extension [SIEVE-MAILBOX], which allows
testing for the presence of a special-use attribute in the "/private/
specialuse" IMAP METADATA [IMAP-METADATA] entry of a mailbox. Still,
not all implementers will be willing to add the complexity of the
IMAP METADATA capability just to provide access to special-use
attributes to the Sieve interpreter.
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RFC 8579 Sieve: Special-Use Mailboxes May 2019
This document defines an extension to the Sieve mail filtering
language that adds the ability to freely access mailbox special-use
attributes. It adds a test called "specialuse_exists" that checks 1)
whether a special-use attribute is assigned for a particular mailbox
or 2) whether any of the user's personal mailboxes have a special-use
attribute assigned. It also adds the ability to file messages into a
personal mailbox identified by a particular special-use attribute
rather than the mailbox's name. This is achieved using the new
":specialuse" argument for the "fileinto" command [SIEVE].
2. Conventions Used in This Document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
BCP 14 [KEYWORDS] [KEYWORDS-UPD] when, and only when, they appear in
all capitals, as shown here.
Conventions for notations are as described in Section 1.1 of [SIEVE],
including use of the "Usage:" label for the definition of the action
and the syntax of tagged arguments.
In [IMAP] examples, "C:" and "S:" indicate lines sent by the client
and server, respectively. If such lines are wrapped without a new
"C:" or "S:" label, then the wrapping is for editorial clarity and is
not part of the command.
3. Test "specialuse_exists"
Usage: specialuse_exists [<mailbox: string>]
<special-use-attrs: string-list>
If the "mailbox" string argument is omitted, the "specialuse_exists"
test yields "true" if all of the following statements are true for
each of the special-use attributes listed in the special-use-attrs
argument:
a. At least one mailbox exists in the user's personal namespace
[NAMESPACE] that has that particular special-use attribute
assigned.
b. That mailbox allows the user in whose context the Sieve script
runs to "deliver" messages into it.
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RFC 8579 Sieve: Special-Use Mailboxes May 2019
If the mailbox argument is specified, the "specialuse_exists" test
yields "true" if all of the following statements are true:
a. The indicated mailbox exists.
b. That mailbox allows the user in whose context the Sieve script
runs to "deliver" messages into it.
c. That mailbox has all of the special-use attributes listed in the
special-use-attrs argument assigned to it.
Refer to the specification of the "mailboxexists" test in Section 3.1
of RFC 5490 [SIEVE-MAILBOX] for a definition of when "delivery" of
messages into a mailbox is deemed possible.
3.1. Equivalent IMAP Operations
To clarify, the following IMAP protocol examples show a sequence of
[IMAP] commands that a client could send to perform an assessment
without Sieve that is equivalent to the "specialuse_exists" test.
First, the client queries which namespaces are available using the
NAMESPACE command [NAMESPACE]:
C: A01 NAMESPACE
S: * NAMESPACE (("INBOX/" "/")("Archive/" "/")) NIL (("Public/" "/"))
S: A01 OK NAMESPACE command completed
Subsequently, when no particular mailbox is of interest (i.e., the
"specialuse_exists" test has no mailbox argument), the client lists
all mailboxes with special-use attributes in the two returned
personal namespaces (this extended LIST command requires the LIST-
EXTENDED IMAP capability [LIST-EXTENDED]):
C: A02 LIST (SPECIAL-USE) "" ("INBOX/*" "Archive/*")
RETURN (SPECIAL-USE)
S: * LIST (\Drafts) "/" INBOX/Drafts
S: * LIST (\Trash) "/" INBOX/Trash
S: * LIST (\Sent) "/" INBOX/Sent
S: * LIST (\Archive) "/" Archive/Default
S: A02 OK LIST command completed
Finally, using the MYRIGHTS command [IMAP-ACL], the client determines
the access rights it has for the mailbox or mailboxes that have all
the requested attributes assigned. This way, it can determine
whether messages can be saved to any of those. In this example, an
"\Archive" special-use mailbox is sought:
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RFC 8579 Sieve: Special-Use Mailboxes May 2019
C: A03 MYRIGHTS Archive/Default
S: * MYRIGHTS Archive/Default lrwsip
S: A03 OK Myrights completed
The MYRIGHTS response indicates that the user has "insert" rights
[IMAP-ACL] for the "Archive/Default" mailbox, meaning that the client
can deliver (APPEND) messages to that mailbox and that the Sieve
"specialuse_exists" test would yield "true" in this case.
4. ":specialuse" Argument to "fileinto" Command
Usage: fileinto [:specialuse <special-use-attr: string>]
<mailbox: string>
Normally, the "fileinto" command delivers the message in the mailbox
specified using its positional mailbox argument, which is the name of
the mailbox. However, if the optional ":specialuse" argument is also
specified, the "fileinto" command first checks whether a mailbox
exists in the user's personal namespace [NAMESPACE] with the
specified special-use attribute assigned to it. If that is the case,
that special-use mailbox is used for delivery instead. If there is
no such mailbox or if the specified special-use attribute is unknown
to the implementation in general, the "fileinto" action proceeds as
it would without the ":specialuse" argument.
Summarizing, if the ":specialuse" argument is specified, the
"fileinto" command deals with two mailboxes that may or may not exist
and may, in fact, be equal:
o A special-use mailbox in the user's personal namespace, which has
at least the special-use attribute specified with the
":specialuse" argument assigned to it. The name for this mailbox
is not relevant here; it is only identified by the assigned
special-use attribute.
o The default mailbox named by the positional string argument of the
"fileinto" command, which is used when the special-use mailbox is
not found.
The special-use attribute specified with the ":specialuse" argument
conforms to the "use-attr" syntax described in Section 6 of RFC 6154
[SPECIAL-USE]. Implementations SHOULD handle an invalid special-use
attribute in the same way as an invalid mailbox name is handled. The
string parameter of the ":specialuse" argument is not a constant
string, which means that variable substitutions are allowed when the
"variables" extension [VARIABLES] is active. In that case, the
syntax of the special-use attribute is only verified at runtime.
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RFC 8579 Sieve: Special-Use Mailboxes May 2019
If neither the special-use mailbox nor the default mailbox exists,
the "fileinto" action MUST proceed exactly as it does in case the
":specialuse" argument is absent and the mailbox named by its
positional argument does not exist. The various options for handling
this situation are described in Section 4.1 of RFC 5228 [SIEVE].
More than one mailbox in the user's personal namespace can have a
particular special-use attribute assigned. If one of those mailboxes
is, in fact, the default mailbox named by the positional string
argument of the "fileinto" command, that mailbox MUST be used for
delivery. If the default mailbox is not one of the options, the
mailbox that is chosen for delivery is implementation defined.
However, while the set of mailboxes to which the involved special-use
attribute are assigned remains unchanged, implementations SHOULD
ensure that the mailbox choice is made consistently, so that the same
mailbox is used every time. Conversely, the chosen mailbox MAY
change once the assignments of the special-use attribute that are
relevant for the mailbox choice are changed (usually by user
interaction).
If delivery to the special-use mailbox fails for reasons not relating
to its existence, the Sieve interpreter MUST NOT subsequently attempt
delivery in the indicated default mailbox as a fallback. Instead, it
MUST proceed exactly as it does in case the ":specialuse" argument is
absent and delivery to the mailbox named by its positional argument
fails. This prevents the situation where messages are unexpectedly
spread over two mailboxes in case transient or intermittent delivery
failures occur.
4.1. Mailboxes Created Implicitly by the "fileinto" Command
Before attempting to deliver the message into the specified mailbox,
the "fileinto" command may implicitly create the mailbox if it does
not exist (see Section 4.1 of RFC 5228 [SIEVE]). This optional
behavior can be requested explicitly using the "mailbox" extension
[SIEVE-MAILBOX], which adds the optional ":create" argument to the
"fileinto" command. If the ":create" argument is specified with
"fileinto", it instructs the Sieve interpreter to unconditionally
create the specified mailbox if needed. Note that the ":create"
argument has no effect when the implicit creation of mailboxes for
delivery is the default behavior.
When the ":specialuse" argument is present, this behavior does not
change; the Sieve interpreter will implicitly create the specified
default mailbox if needed. This need arises when both the special-
use mailbox and the default mailbox are not found.
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RFC 8579 Sieve: Special-Use Mailboxes May 2019
If the server implementation supports the CREATE-SPECIAL-USE
capability [SPECIAL-USE] for IMAP (i.e., it allows assigning special-
use attributes to new mailboxes), it SHOULD assign the special-use
attribute specified with the ":specialuse" argument to the newly
created mailbox.
4.2. Equivalent IMAP Operations
To clarify, the following IMAP protocol examples show a sequence of
[IMAP] commands that a client could send to perform an action without
Sieve that is equivalent to the "fileinto" action with the
":specialuse" argument. The following Sieve script is assumed:
require "fileinto";
require "special-use";
fileinto :specialuse "\\Archive" "INBOX/Archive";
First, the client proceeds as in Section 3.1 to find out whether the
indicated special-use attribute is assigned to any mailbox in the
user's personal namespace. If a matching special-use mailbox is
found, the message is delivered there using the IMAP APPEND command.
If no matching special-use mailbox is found, the client attempts to
deliver the message to the indicated default mailbox:
C: A04 APPEND INBOX/Archive {309}
S: A04 NO [TRYCREATE] Mailbox does not exist: INBOX/Archive
In this example, the default mailbox does not exist either. In that
case, the client MAY create the default mailbox and assign the
indicated special-use attribute to it:
C: A05 CREATE INBOX/Archive (USE (\Archive))
S: A05 OK Create completed
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RFC 8579 Sieve: Special-Use Mailboxes May 2019
Finally, the client completes the delivery:
C: A06 APPEND INBOX/Archive {309}
S: + OK
C: Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2018 22:00:09 +0200
C: From: mooch@owatagu.siam.example
C: To: Fred Foobar <foobar@Blurdybloop.example>
C: Subject: afternoon meeting
C: Message-Id: <Q234234-01012222@owatagu.siam.example>
C: MIME-Version: 1.0
C: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
C:
C: Hi Fred, do you think we can meet again at 3:30 tomorrow?
C:
S: A06 OK [APPENDUID 1533375901 2312] Append completed.
5. Sieve Capability Strings
A Sieve implementation that defines the "specialuse_exists" test and
the ":specialuse" argument for the "fileinto" command will advertise
the capability string "special-use".
6. Examples
The following example saves the message in the mailbox where messages
deemed to be junk mail are held. This mailbox is identified using
the "\Junk" special-use attribute. If no mailbox has this attribute
assigned, the message is filed into the mailbox named "Spam". If the
mailbox named "Spam" does not exist either, the result of this Sieve
script is implementation dependent, e.g., it may trigger an error or
the mailbox may be created implicitly.
require "fileinto";
require "special-use";
fileinto :specialuse "\\Junk" "Spam";
The following very similar example explicitly handles the case in
which neither a "\Junk" special-use mailbox nor the "Spam" mailbox
exists. In that case, a mailbox called "Spam" is created, and the
message is stored there. Additionally, the "\Junk" special-use
attribute may be assigned to it.
require "fileinto";
require "special-use";
require "mailbox";
fileinto :specialuse "\\Junk" :create "Spam";
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RFC 8579 Sieve: Special-Use Mailboxes May 2019
The following example is used in a Sieve script that is triggered
from an IMAP event rather than at message delivery [IMAPSIEVE]. This
Sieve script redirects messages to an automated recipient that
processes junk mail if those messages are copied or moved into a
mailbox that has the "\Junk" special-use attribute assigned.
require "imapsieve";
require "special-use";
require "environment";
require "variables";
if environment :contains "imap.mailbox" "*" {
set "mailbox" "${1}";
}
if allof(
environment "imap.cause" "COPY",
specialuse_exists "${mailbox}" "\\Junk") {
redirect "spam-report@example.org";
}
7. Security Considerations
Security considerations are discussed in [SIEVE], [VARIABLES], and
[SPECIAL-USE]. It is believed that this extension does not introduce
any additional security concerns.
Note that this specification explicitly restricts the special-use
mailbox to the user's personal namespace. First, this avoids the
need to search the entire mail storage for mailboxes that have a
particular special-use attribute assigned. This could put undue load
on the system, while shared special-use mailboxes are deemed of
limited use with the currently defined special-use attributes.
Secondly, it prevents security concerns with shared mailboxes that
have special-use attributes assigned that apply to all users.
Searching the entire mail storage for special-use mailboxes could
lead to messages unexpectedly or even maliciously being filed to
shared mailboxes.
This restriction could be lifted for particular future special-use
attributes, but such new attributes should have a clear application
for shared mailboxes, and the security concerns should be considered
carefully.
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RFC 8579 Sieve: Special-Use Mailboxes May 2019
8. IANA Considerations
IANA has registered the Sieve extension specified in this document in
the "Sieve Extensions" registry at <https://www.iana.org/assignments/
sieve-extensions>:
Capability name: special-use
Description: adds a test for checking whether an IMAP
special-use attribute is assigned for a
particular mailbox or any mailbox; also adds
the ability to file messages into a mailbox
identified solely by a special-use attribute.
RFC number: RFC 8579
Contact address: Sieve discussion list <sieve@ietf.org>
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[IMAP-METADATA]
Daboo, C., "The IMAP METADATA Extension", RFC 5464,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 5464, February 2009,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5464>.
[KEYWORDS] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 2119>.
[KEYWORDS-UPD]
Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC 8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8174>.
[NAMESPACE]
Gahrns, M. and C. Newman, "IMAP4 Namespace", RFC 2342,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 2342, May 1998,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 2342>.
[SIEVE] Guenther, P., Ed. and T. Showalter, Ed., "Sieve: An Email
Filtering Language", RFC 5228, DOI 10.17487/RFC 5228,
January 2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5228>.
[SIEVE-MAILBOX]
Melnikov, A., "The Sieve Mail-Filtering Language --
Extensions for Checking Mailbox Status and Accessing
Mailbox Metadata", RFC 5490, DOI 10.17487/RFC 5490, March
2009, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5490>.
Bosch Standards Track PAGE 10
RFC 8579 Sieve: Special-Use Mailboxes May 2019
[SPECIAL-USE]
Leiba, B. and J. Nicolson, "IMAP LIST Extension for
Special-Use Mailboxes", RFC 6154, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6154,
March 2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6154>.
[VARIABLES]
Homme, K., "Sieve Email Filtering: Variables Extension",
RFC 5229, DOI 10.17487/RFC 5229, January 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5229>.
9.2. Informative References
[IMAP] Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION
4rev1", RFC 3501, DOI 10.17487/RFC 3501, March 2003,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 3501>.
[IMAP-ACL] Melnikov, A., "IMAP4 Access Control List (ACL) Extension",
RFC 4314, DOI 10.17487/RFC 4314, December 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 4314>.
[IMAPSIEVE]
Leiba, B., "Support for Internet Message Access Protocol
(IMAP) Events in Sieve", RFC 6785, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6785,
November 2012, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6785>.
[LIST-EXTENDED]
Leiba, B. and A. Melnikov, "Internet Message Access
Protocol version 4 - LIST Command Extensions", RFC 5258,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 5258, June 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5258>.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Stan Kalisch, Barry Leiba, Alexey Melnikov, Ken Murchison,
and Ned Freed for reviews and suggestions.
Thanks to the authors of RFC 5490 [SIEVE-MAILBOX], from which some
descriptive text in this document is borrowed.
Bosch Standards Track PAGE 11
RFC 8579 Sieve: Special-Use Mailboxes May 2019
Author's Address
Stephan Bosch
Open Xchange Oy
Lars Sonckin kaari 12
Espoo 02600
Finland
Email: stephan.bosch@open-xchange.com
Bosch Standards Track PAGE 12
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 24716 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Saturday, May 11th, 2019
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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