IMAP standard folder names - "Junk" or "Spam"

Question

I am configuring spamassassin at the moment and have been wondering what is the standard (or atleast most used and recognized by most clients) folder name for Spam or Junk?

I first used Spam, but then notized that my preferred webmailer, roundcube, uses Junk by default. This can of course be changed, but I am wondering which is the name used by the majority of clients.

The other names I use are: INBOX, Sent, Trash, Drafts. Is this correct?

Solution 1

Unfortunately both are very common. Most of the OpenSource software I've found uses Junk, and most of the Proprietary software seems to use Spam. New users may be accustomed to either...

The only "solution" I've found is to use one or the other, and to do so very consistently. At home I use RoundCube as well, and I standardized on "Junk" long before. If I had chosen "Spam" I would simply change the default locations and button labels on RC so it matches. At work we use Exchange/Outlook, so "Spam" was the clear choice as everything was setup for it already (despite the fact that Outlook's buttons and menu options are for "Junk Mail").

It may be possible, depending on your server configuration, to have both folders linked to the same location. I've found this to cause confusion, more so than picking one or the other (users asked "What's the difference" despite both having the exact same content).

INBOX is part of the IMAP standard, the other three have generally been standardized on those names, but I've also seen "Sent Items" instead of "Sent", "Deleted" and "Deleted Items" instead of "Trash". "Drafts" is the only one I've never seen a variant of.

Solution 2

Luckily, RFC 6154 IMAP LIST Extension for Special-Use Mailboxes is here to help us, giving some standard mailbox attributes for identifying special-use mailboxes.

\Junk

• This mailbox is where messages deemed to be junk mail are held. Some server implementations might put messages here automatically. Alternatively, this might just be advice to a client-side spam filter.

While the proposed standard uses the name junk, it's possible to make a mailbox or maildir named Spam to have this special-use flag, and all the IMAP clients following the standard will know the purpose of this mailbox despite server-side filters are moving messages to the Spam folder.

Difference between Spam Mail and Junk Mail (and Ashley Poland) suggests that spam is a term for unsolicited mail, whereas junk is solicited mail. That's why spam can be rejected while junk gets moved to another folder. Statistically most clients uses Junk as the folder name, and Thunderbird has chosen it to differentiate. Leo A. Notenboom treats spam and junk as synonyms, and so does Wikipedia.

Additionally, Office 365 has a new category clutter for mail that isn't neither spam nor junk, but still something you usually ignore. That's similar to Bacn, email you want — but not right now, but we'll see whether clutter will get more widely accepted.

Solution 3

Since you also asked what the most recognized term is, I would go with Spam.

Imho this is the better choice, because Spam is more specific to e-mail. People now that spam e-mails are unsolicited e-mails but it is not clear what junk e-mails are.

Are these e-mails that have not been transmitted correctly due to technical problems? Or are these e-mails that once were useful but no longer are, therefore are junk? Are they the e-mails that go into the trash. What is the difference between junk and trash?

Spam does not have this ambiguity.

Comments

[Gryphius]

what exactly are you trying to achieve/why do you need to configure a imap folder for SA? Do you want to create a default spam folder for your users or do you want to find out if your user's mailclient already created one? Depending on your use case and server configuration the exact name of the folder may not be relevant, if server and client support the IMAP "special use" extension (rfc 6154)

[Zulakis]

Yes, I need to create a default folder.

[Gryphius]

in that case, use the name that you think will be most consistent in your environment (see Chris S's answer) and (if possible) set the special use flag \Junk on that folder, so mail clients that support this extensions should automatically map their own spam/junk folder to the correct name

[Tobia]

This is very unfortunate and the source of countless man-years of support in configuring people's devices, who inevitably end up with dozens of variations on Sent, Drafts, Trash, Junk, and Archives, including translations in foreign languages in many cases. Do you know if there is at least any proposal to standardize this mess?

[problemofficer - n.f. Monica]

It is named an "attribute" and imho implies that it is an internal name and not necessarily a display name. I guess it does make sense to follow the standard and use "Junk" also as the user visible name, but I still think that "Spam" is more broadly understood.

[Esa Jokinen]

I added some sources that suggests otherwise.

[oucil]

This may date me, but you may not remember this.... "Junk Mail" predated "Spam" by decades, and trust me, it was unsolicited, but continues to be dropped in your physical mailbox on a daily basis ;)

[Flow]

@problemofficer If "the standard" you are referring to is RFC 6154, then I can not find any place where this RFC recommends using "Junk" as user visible name. As you already noted, RFC 6154 just talks about mailbox attributes. One being named \Junk, and the attribute name used by the protocol is typically not user visible. The whole idea of RFC 6154 is to allow arbitrary names for the spam (and user special use) mailbox(s). For example to allow for l18n (بريد مؤذي).

[Esa Jokinen]

And how is that in contradiction with my answer? Please don't cut my sentences when citing me: I wrote "standard mailbox attributes for identifying" and that, with this attribute, "it's possible to make a mailbox or maildir named Spam".