Hello,
I've recently upgraded to debian 13 (trixie), from debian 12 (bookworm).
In bookworm I had the following setup working like perfection:
- All mail is sorted to some mailbox folder through sieve (either a
"specialized" one, or a generic folder under the inbox name like year.month -
2025.08).
- No email whatsoever was ever reaching the inbox.
- Then I had a virtual inbox which would get me all the "unread" or "flagged"
messages
This way I had all my email sorted out from the delivery and my inbox cleared
itself once I had read an email.
For this I was using the stock debian dovecot packages, and now, after the
upgrade to debian 13 I'm also using the stock debian packages.
However, this whole neat setup broke and I can't get it to work again. I've
searched dovecot's manual, asked two different AIs, did a number of web
searches and adapted the new configuration files to the new syntax but dovecot
refuses to list the emails in my INBOX folder. I've spent already several hours
around this, to no avail. Unfortunately I didn't keep a copy of the config
files from debian 12 so now I can't really compare but I did manually change
the dovecot config files after the upgrade so that what I had running in debian
12 should work as before (it was refusing to start after the upgrade).
Here is the output of dovecot -n
# 2.4.1-4 (7d8c0e5759): /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
# Pigeonhole version 2.4.1-4 (0a86619f)
# OS: Linux 6.12.41+deb13-amd64 x86_64 Debian 13.0
# Hostname: myhost
# 4 default setting changes since version 2.4.0
dovecot_config_version = 2.4.0
auth_mechanisms = plain login
dovecot_storage_version = 2.4.0
fts_autoindex = yes
fts_autoindex_max_recent_msgs = 999
fts_search_add_missing = yes
lda_mailbox_autocreate = yes
lda_mailbox_autosubscribe = yes
mail_driver = maildir
mail_inbox_path = ~/Maildir
mail_path = ~/Maildir
mail_plugins {
notify = yes
mail_log = yes
virtual = yes
}
mail_privileged_group = mail
namespace_subscriptions = no
protocols {
imap = yes
sieve = yes
}
passdb pam {
}
userdb passwd {
}
namespace inbox {
inbox = yes
prefix =
separator = .
subscriptions = yes
mailbox Drafts {
special_use = "\\Drafts"
}
mailbox Junk {
special_use = "\\Junk"
}
mailbox Trash {
special_use = "\\Trash"
}
mailbox Sent {
special_use = "\\Sent"
}
mailbox "Sent Messages" {
special_use = "\\Sent"
}
}
service imap-login {
inet_listener imap {
}
inet_listener imaps {
}
}
service pop3-login {
inet_listener pop3 {
}
inet_listener pop3s {
}
}
service submission-login {
inet_listener submission {
port = 587
}
inet_listener submissions {
}
}
service lmtp {
unix_listener lmtp {
}
}
service imap {
executable = imap imap-postlogin
}
service pop3 {
}
service submission {
}
service auth {
unix_listener auth-userdb {
}
unix_listener /var/spool/postfix/private/auth {
group = postfix
mode = 0660
user = postfix
}
}
service auth-worker {
}
service dict {
unix_listener dict {
}
}
ssl_server {
cert_file = /etc/dovecot/private/dovecot.pem
dh_file = /usr/share/dovecot/dh.pem
key_file = /etc/dovecot/private/dovecot.key
}
protocol lda {
mail_plugins {
sieve = yes
}
}
protocol imap {
mail_max_userip_connections = 40
}
service managesieve-login {
inet_listener sieve {
port = 4190
}
}
namespace 00-virtual {
mail_driver = virtual
mail_path = ~/Maildir/virtual
hidden = no
inbox = no
list = yes
prefix = 00-virtual.
separator = .
}
namespace virtual {
mail_driver = virtual
mail_path = ~/Maildir/virtual
hidden = no
inbox = no
list = yes
prefix = virtual.
separator = .
}
namespace real {
hidden = yes
inbox = no
list = no
prefix = real.
separator = .
subscriptions = no
}
service imap-postlogin {
executable = script-login /usr/local/bin/dovecot-postlogin.sh
unix_listener imap-postlogin {
}
}
passdb deny {
deny = yes
driver = passwd-file
passwd_file_path = /etc/dovecot/deny-users
}
This is /usr/local/bin/dovecot-postlogin.sh
#!/bin/sh
VIRTUAL=$HOME/Maildir/virtual
# AUTOMATICALLY VIRTUALIZE INBOX
#
# If the user creates a virtual/INBOX/dovecot-virtual,
# switch the inbox to the virtual namespace.
if [ -d "${VIRTUAL}/INBOX" ]; then
export USERDB_KEYS="$USERDB_KEYS NAMESPACE/VIRTUAL/INBOX
NAMESPACE/INBOX/INBOX"
logger -p mail.debug "$USERDB_KEYS $VIRTUAL $@"
/usr/bin/env USERDB_KEYS="$USERDB_KEYS" NAMESPACE/VIRTUAL/INBOX=yes
NAMESPACE/INBOX/INBOX=no "$@"
else
exec "$@"
fi
This is the content of $HOME/Maildir/virtual/INBOX/dovecot-virtual
real.*
OR UNSEEN FLAGGED
I'm also getting this message anytime that I login with a mail client:
2025-08-22T21:52:29.466584+01:00 ****** dovecot:
imap(***)<316863><svBRYvo8+pXAqFoB>: Error: Mailbox INBOX: Failed to autocreate
mailbox: Can't create virtual mailboxes
Note that the 00-virtual namespace was added just as a temporary check and I
want to delete it once this is working again.
I have also a file under $HOME/Maildir/virtual/Flagged/dovecot-virtual with the
exact same contents as the INBOX one above which get's me a virtual folder that
works correctly (getting all my unread and flagged email in a single folder),
so the filter works. Just changing the INBOX from the real to the virtual one
fails and I can't understand what am I doing wrong or what am I missing.
Can someone please help me? I'm completely lost and frustrated on this.
Thank you very much.
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