IMAP4 SEARCHM Command for Multiple Mailboxes
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
The IMAP4 specification allows the searching only of the selected mailbox. A user often wants to search multiple mailboxes, and a client that wishes to support this must issue a series of SELECT and SEARCH commands, waiting for each to complete before moving on to the next. This extension allows a client to search multiple mailboxes with one command, limiting the round-trips and waiting for various searches to complete. This also introduces named searches, allowing a client to pipeline the searches if it chooses.