What Is Apache James Protocols IMAP4?

A library providing a flexible codec for IMAP4, command processors and a sample data access layer.

In combination with a socket layer, and a mailbox persistence, this library can be used to create an IMAP server.

RFC 2060 IMAP4rev1 is functionally complete, tested and usable. The data access layer is still under optimization on performance perspectives. API is susceptible to change.

You can download current 0.3 release. The API are susceptible to evolve.

There are many extensions defined for IMAP (see a list here)

Apache James IMAP implements the following:

  • IMAP4rev1 (RFC 3501 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3501.txt)
  • NAMESPACE (in release 0.2) (RFC 2342 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2342.txt)
  • IDLE (in release 0.2) (RFC 2177 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2177.txt)
  • LITERAL+ (in release 0.2)
  • CHILDREN (in release 0.2)
  • WITHIN (in release 0.2)
  • UIDPLUS (in release 0.2)
  • UNSELECT (in release 0.2)
  • I18NLEVEL=1 (in release 0.2.1)
  • ESEARCH (in release 0.2.1)
  • SEARCHRES (in release 0.2.1)
  • AUTH=PLAIN (in release 0.2.1)
  • SASL-IR (in release 0.2.1)
  • ENABLE (in release 0.2.1)
  • CONDSTORE (RFC 4551 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4551.txt in release 0.3)
  • RESYNCH (RFC 5162 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5162.txt on master)
  • MOVE (RFC 6851 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6851 on master). This is enabled only if you use a MailboxManager exposing the Move capability
  • METADATA Extension (RFC 5464 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5464.txt on master). This is enabled only if you use a MailboxManager exposing the Annotation capability
  • IMAP Replace Extension (RFC 8508 - https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8508.html)
  • IMAP Extension for APPENDLIMIT (RFC 7889 - https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7889.html)
  • IMAP Extension for OBJECTID (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8474.html)
  • IMAP Extension for STATUS=SIZE (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8438.html)
  • IMAP QUOTA (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9208.html)
  • IMAP ID (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2971.html)
  • IMAP LIST Command Extensions (link:https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5258.html)
  • IMAP4 Extension for Returning STATUS Information in Extended LIST (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5819.html)
  • IMAP4 Extension for Returning MYRIGHTS Information in Extended LIST (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8440.html)
  • IMAP LIST Extension for Special-Use Mailboxes (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6154.html)
  • SAVEDATE Extension (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8514.html)
  • IMAP PARTIAL Extension for Paged SEARCH and FETCH (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9394.html)

We follow RFC2683 recommendations for our implementations:

  • IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations (RFC 2683 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2683.txt)

Interesting features:

  • Users FLAGS

Other RFCs of interest we are looking at:

  • IMAP4 SORT and THREAD Extensions (RFC 5256 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5256.txt)

We have integration tests for IMAP.

Our implementation is also tested against external tools such as http://www.imapwiki.org/ImapTest.

Apache James IMAP in Server and as component

Apache James Server 3.8.1 supports IMAP (using this library).

The source code page contains information on how to develop on James IMAP.