postfix and save to sent mail dir

Question

i know this might be a dummy question or a question that comes from lake of knowledge, but i hope someone can still answer it. i did try to read a lot of postfix documentation but found no answer to this. i don't even know if it's a postfix specific or mail servers general question.

so i have a mail server, just a clean postfix install that delivers email. iv'e defined my users and connected with IMAP and SMTP using thunderbird.

when i went to thunderbird account settings and disabled "place a copy", postfix did not put a copy of the sent message in the user .Sent folder.

however, iv'e also connected my gmail,hotmail or yahoo mail and diabled the "place a copy" and still have a copy in the sent items folder.

so in this case there are 2 options:

1. something is wrong with my postfix configuration
2. gmail,hotmail,yahoo put a copy in thier sent folder as a different process on the server side

thanks in advance

Answer 1

Just for the record, having searched around for a how to, and not finding one, I am posting it here:

The only (easy) way I've found to save sent emails is the sender_bcc solution (with it's attendant faults):

I am using postfix / dovecot / sieve / mysql virtual boxes

In /etc/postfix/main.cf add:

sender_bcc_maps = mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual-bcc-maps.cf

Create file /etc/postfix/mysql-virtual-bcc-maps.cf:

user = (database user)
password = (database password)
hosts = 127.0.0.1
dbname = (database databasename)
query = SELECT CONCAT_WS('',LEFT('%s', LOCATE('@', '%s')-1),'+sent@',SUBSTRING('%s', LOCATE('@', '%s')+1)) AS destination FROM virtual_users WHERE email='%s' AND autosent=1

You'll note in my query, I've added a (tinyint default 0) column to my virtual_users table so I can turn on/off this automatic sent items feature per user. This query takes the sender email address that postfix gives it, splits it in half at the @ sign, and adds +sent to the address so it looks like [email protected]. This allows sieve in the next step to pick it up and drop it straight to sent items.

In /etc/dovecot/sieve/default.sieve add:

require ["fileinto", "mailbox", "envelope", "subaddress","imap4flags"];
if envelope :detail "to" "sent" {
    addflag "\\Seen";
    fileinto :create "Sent";
    stop;
}

Also helpful to modify /etc/dovecot/conf.d/15-mailboxes.conf and add the auto subscribe to sent (and junk and trash and others for that matter):

  mailbox Sent {
    special_use = \Sent
    auto = subscribe
  }

I think that is all (I'm posting this the next day after doing it, so I think I got it all...)

Answer 2

Postfix itself does not place copies of sent messages anywhere; it receives messages and delivers them to the recipient. Saving sent messages to your own mailbox is the responsibility of your user agent (Thunderbird, in your case).

It's important to understand that Postfix (and other traditional Unix SMTP servers) don't have a "user" concept. Yes, if so configured it's possible to authenticate by supplying a username and a password, but Postfix doesn't use this identity information.

That said, it's not impossible to configure Postfix to do what you expected – sender_bcc_maps can be used to add a recipient to messages sent by you, and by adding yourself and using a filter in your mail client (or mail delivery agent like procmail) you can make sure that messages sent by you end up in the Sent folder.

Answer 3

I am running a Installation with automatic copies created by sender_bcc_maps. It's working fine. You have to check the sender, otherwise everyone can create sent mails in foreign sent folders.

I have solved it with two virtual domains. One for the user and one for the copy.

But there is a big problem with sender_bcc_maps. All bcc senders will be deleted in the sent copy. You cannot see anymore, who got a blind copy of this mail.