For years I have had problems getting IMAP access to exchange servers.  Many organizations don’t enable IMAP on their Exchange servers, and others don’t do it right.   I recently came across a solution that  works with the Microsoft WebMail interface to provide an IMAP and/or POP3 access to the mail servers.  This allows use of IMAP mail clients like Thunderbird or Microsoft Live Mail.

This article describes the solution as I have implemented it.  It uses the open source DavMail Gateway written in Java.  It accesses a WebMail server and provides access via standard protocols like IMAP, SMTP, and CalDav.   This program can be configured for personal use on a desktop, or group use on a server.  When configuring a server, it is recommended that you provide SSL keys so that secure protocols can be used. Continue reading →