Comment 87 for bug 119899

(In reply to comment #64)
> The reason that this bug was re-activated is because of broken IMAP Server
> Search functions. "Some people" complained that "after the fact" filtering was
> broken and it turned out that the reason that it was broken is that the IMAP
> search functions were not implemented or not implemented correctly.
>
Most IMAP servers probably now implement such standards somewhat. Many people make use of these standards-conforming servers and use standards-conforming clients like Seamonkey.

> Probably the best way to solve this issue, is not to use the IMAP search
> functions but to cache the headers in the .MSF databases then let Thunderbird
> do rest.
>
Seamonkey should be able to leverage the standards-compliance/conformance of good IMAP servers. Cannot there be an option in the "Server Settings" section of an IMAP account to choose whether or not to use the server-side IMAP SEARCH command with a warning about nonstandard servers? This would make sense for people who have limited disk space and need mail filtering for already received mail.
I would hope that this issue could finally be solved before Seamonkey 2 is out, as it's been around for a while.