1 Topic by fusionemail (edited by fusionemail 2025-06-14 00:10:53)

  • fusionemail
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Topic: dovecot with imap_idle

I'm having delays with SOGO/Activesync and ChatGPT recommended imap_idle as a plugin for dovecot that it said is critical. The module is missing from the several iRedMail implementations I've looked at.

Is there a reason for this? Is there a recommended way to implement it?

Thanks in advance!

Fusion

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Spider Email Archiver: On-Premises, lightweight email archiving software developed by iRedMail team. Supports Amazon S3 compatible storage and custom branding.

2 Reply by coralsnake (edited by coralsnake 2025-06-16 17:16:05)

  • coralsnake
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Re: dovecot with imap_idle

Hi Fusion,

There’s no imap_idle plugin for Dovecot; IMAP IDLE is a built-in feature of the IMAP protocol, not a separate module.
Dovecot supports it by default, so it’s likely already active in your iRedMail setup.
You can check with: 

dovecot -a | grep idle_notify

The default value is 2 minutes, which can be battery-intensive for mobile devices. A higher value (e.g., 5 or 29 minutes) can help reduce battery consumption.
Warning: A too-long interval may cause some clients to terminate the connection prematurely if they don’t receive a response in time. Therefore, test changes carefully.

Delays with SOGo/ActiveSync are unrelated, as ActiveSync uses its own push mechanism, not IMAP IDLE.

To optimize IMAP IDLE for other IMAP clients, adjust imap_idle_notify_interval in 

/etc/dovecot/conf.d/20-imap.conf

and restart Dovecot. 

service dovecot restart

For SOGo/ActiveSync issues, check SOGo’s ActiveSync configuration or logs for errors.

3 Reply by fusionemail (edited by fusionemail 2025-06-16 23:10:06)

  • fusionemail
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Re: dovecot with imap_idle

Thank you! This is helpful. I saw that setting and clearly ChatGPT had.incongruous information.

I have remote clients (off the iRed server) that take a long time, maybe longer than hours to sync even though they are set for activesync. While clients on the server like Roundcube don't have this delay or issue. Please let me know where I should look. I've reduced the number of emails on the inbox on this server (now a few hundred) and that doesn't show any improvement. It doesn't appear to be an obvious race condition.

SOGO web client also sees the same delay as Outlook (off server) which is why I thought IMAP was an issue.

I may try disabling or loosening fail2ban to see if that speeds things up.

coralsnake wrote:

Delays with SOGo/ActiveSync are unrelated, as ActiveSync uses its own push mechanism, not IMAP IDLE.