Why are user inboxes called "user.some-user" ?

[Conrad Kleinespel]

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all having a nice week :-)

I am wondering why user inboxes have to be created as "user.some-user"
instead of just "some-user" within the Cyrus IMAP server. I have a few
ideas, but am unsure:
- is it because all "user.*" inboxes have, by default, the same
permissions as "user" ?
- is it just so that emails are stuffed inside the
"/var/spool/imap/user/some-user" folder on disk ?
- something else ?

Also, what are some cases where using something other than "user.*"
might be useful ? I noticed shared mailboxes are sometimes created as
"shared.some-shared-user", which creates a
"/var/spool/imap/shared/some-shared-user" directory for incoming email.
But that's all I have noticed about it.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Best regards,

Conrad Kleinespel
conradk at conradk.com
+33 6 23 82 42 79