Introduction

One of the goals at Mailtrust is to provide a browser-based webmail client that can serve as a replacement for desktop email applications. In order for this to happen, webmail must provide a fast, reliable search tool that meets or exceeds that of desktop email applications. Many current webmail search systems, however, are built on top of existing IMAP protocols, which do not index emails. Instead, the IMAP software must parse each email for the string the user is searching for—a process that becomes very slow as the user's mailbox grows over time. This document provides the technical details of how the developers at Mailtrust have overcome these existing IMAP protocol limitations, building a search system that is feature rich, fast, and scalable.