If you list that mailbox with RETURN SPECIAL-USE does it show up with the
\Archive use?
What user are you creating the private annotation as? I don't normally use
cyradm; but it says this in the docs:
Note, too, that "private" annotations are private to the user currently
authenticated as, not necessarily the owner of the mailbox. To set
annotations for another user you must authorize as that user.
So you need to create that annotation as the owner of the mailbox in order for
the special-use protection to apply. The checks in mboxlist.c explicitly use
the owner of the mailbox as the lookup key:
annotatemore_lookup(mbname_intname(mbname), "/specialuse",
mbname_userid(mbname), &attrib);
Regards,
Bron.
On Thu, Jun 18, 2026, at 03:34, [email protected] wrote:
> Dear list,
>
> I have a question regarding the proper usage of "specialuse_protect"
>
>
> In /etc/imapd.conf I have set the following:
>
>
> `specialuse_protect: \Archive \Drafts \Important \Junk \Sent \Trash`
>
> ... and restarted cyrus-imapd
>
> Then I created an "Archive" mailbox under my user account and set the
> metadata (the \Archive flag)
>
> cm user/johndoe/Archive
> setmetadata --private user/johndoe/Archive specialuse "\\Archive"
>
> I am using cyrus 3.6.1-4 in Debian Bookworm.
>
> As per my understanding of the docs, this option would prevent users from
> deleting mailboxes with the respective flag(s) set, however I am still able
> to delete the "Archive" mailbox.
>
> Am I missing something crucial here?
>
> Thanks and best regards,
>
> Alex
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--
Bron Gondwana, CEO, Fastmail Pty Ltd / Fastmail US LLC
[email protected]
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