unable to send email to self

[SinghNanak]

Issue Description

When send an email to self (your own id / current account's id ) using JMAP the email doesn't arrive in the inbox. When same is tried with IMAP/SMTP it is successful. I tried thunderbird and it worked, but failed with tmail-web and root-fr/jmap-webmail.

Expected Behavior

Should receive the email.

Actual Behavior

No response

Reproduction Steps

No response

Relevant Log Output

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 04:01:27
TRACE
Raw IMAP input received
listenerId = "imap", localPort = 143, remoteIp = 192.168.0.251, remotePort = 63107, size = 411, contents = "33 append "Sent Items" (\\Seen) UTF8 (~{365+}\r\nMessage-ID: <b5f64a0a-9e85-47b8-8e8e-f506feadb5b2@test.com>\r\nDate: Sat, 24 Jan 2026 04:01:27 +0530\r\nMIME-Version: 1.0\r\nUser-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird\r\nContent-Language: en-US\r\nTo: user2@test.com\r\nFrom: User 2 <user2@test.com>\r\nSubject: to user2 self\r\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed\r\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\r\n\r\nto user2 self body\r\n\r\n"

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 04:01:27
TRACE
Raw IMAP output sent
listenerId = "imap", localPort = 143, remoteIp = 192.168.0.251, remotePort = 59274, size = 219, contents = "* 5 FETCH (UID 5 BODY[HEADER.FIELDS (CONTENT-TYPE CONTENT-TRANSFER-ENCODING)] {91}\r\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed\r\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\r\n\r\n BODY[TEXT]<0> {20}\r\nto user2 self body\r\n)\r\n"

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 04:01:27
TRACE
Raw IMAP output sent
listenerId = "imap", localPort = 143, remoteIp = 192.168.0.251, remotePort = 59274, size = 1285, contents = "* 5 FETCH (UID 5 RFC822.SIZE 1233 BODY[] {1233}\r\nDelivered-To: user2@test.com\r\nX-Spam-Status: No\r\nDKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; s=202601r; d=test.com; c=relaxed/relaxed;\r\n\th=Subject:From:To:Date:Message-ID; t=1769207487; bh=oAYpr8rU2v5urFC3QNOOl9g\r\n\tzR85aY9MYTc0DpgUJrtA=; b=fqydYDfJV8YqElwLkErSC7hgIDZQslUguOOV1l8HaXp0aqNDon\r\n\ttnOMDDoa8F1fcuQ5DK7y7J9e+OgmpXLPdIcdmsgaC2dNe3V+LWUPCGLDIS6UC0Px8bjf+hfNiGH\r\n\tYES5sZGGmXIwWsoG1YtofYwysz8t95rzbGlmyjEDtbfil47aQF1tDWB2kEZScMkLohu5Gu72LRe\r\n\tfXSURuu9xK8wczzzkaFBKVznhJTJQQu19V/R7OKs0+mEiFpDd01mGoc6wewxH370dMmtofKI8S1\r\n\t6K7NttKLK4NqvrQxpFAN0YaHO12uIE3qcXKd3+3uXsBzt0NgqCzxbu0IP6301A3ewLA==;\r\nDKIM-Signature: v=1; a=ed25519-sha256; s=202601e; d=test.com; c=relaxed/relaxed;\r\n\th=Subject:From:To:Date:Message-ID; t=1769207487; bh=oAYpr8rU2v5urFC3QNOOl9g\r\n\tzR85aY9MYTc0DpgUJrtA=; b=fHYN1Z/NL31DS26yfd4HsgPprF52O0LV3lZ9smjuo0vEdIkQgQ\r\n\t6Y5EA9ZPCeuew3qyAdOIxwFMxXiV8kBdtEDQ==;\r\nMessage-ID: <b5f64a0a-9e85-47b8-8e8e-f506feadb5b2@test.com>\r\nDate: Sat, 24 Jan 2026 04:01:27 +0530\r\nMIME-Version: 1.0\r\nUser-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird\r\nContent-Language: en-US\r\nTo: user2@test.com\r\nFrom: User 2 <user2@test.com>\r\nSubject: to user2 self\r\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed\r\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\r\n\r\nto user2 self body\r\n)\r\n"

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 04:01:27
TRACE
Raw IMAP output sent
listenerId = "imap", localPort = 143, remoteIp = 192.168.0.251, remotePort = 59274, size = 423, contents = "* 5 FETCH (UID 5 RFC822.SIZE 1233 FLAGS () BODY[HEADER.FIELDS (FROM TO CC BCC SUBJECT DATE MESSAGE-ID PRIORITY X-PRIORITY REFERENCES NEWSGROUPS IN-REPLY-TO CONTENT-TYPE REPLY-TO)] {233}\r\nMessage-ID: <b5f64a0a-9e85-47b8-8e8e-f506feadb5b2@test.com>\r\nDate: Sat, 24 Jan 2026 04:01:27 +0530\r\nTo: user2@test.com\r\nFrom: User 2 <user2@test.com>\r\nSubject: to user2 self\r\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed\r\n\r\n)\r\n"

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 04:01:27
TRACE
Raw SMTP input received
listenerId = "submission", localPort = 587, remoteIp = 192.168.0.251, remotePort = 63106, size = 365, contents = "Message-ID: <b5f64a0a-9e85-47b8-8e8e-f506feadb5b2@test.com>\r\nDate: Sat, 24 Jan 2026 04:01:27 +0530\r\nMIME-Version: 1.0\r\nUser-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird\r\nContent-Language: en-US\r\nTo: user2@test.com\r\nFrom: User 2 <user2@test.com>\r\nSubject: to user2 self\r\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed\r\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\r\n\r\nto user2 self body\r\n\r\n"



Sat, 24 Jan 2026 03:58:43
TRACE
HTTP response body
listenerId = "https", localPort = 443, remoteIp = 192.168.0.251, remotePort = 62745, contents = "{"data":{"items":[{"timestamp":"2026-01-23T22:28:36Z","level":"TRACE","event":"HTTP request body","event_id":"http.request-body","details":"listenerId = \\"https\\", localPort = 443, remoteIp = 192.168.0.251, remotePort = 63027, details = [[\\"host\\", \\"stalwart.XXXX.com\\"], [\\"connection\\", \\"keep-alive\\"], [\\"content-length\\", \\"1334\\"], [\\"sec-ch-ua-platform\\", \\"\\"Linux\\"\\"], [\\"authorization\\", \\"Bearer KPcrQoxBpY24+k1uyewwF5p1smsfzCqB/QUF18KDyasju0vHz1MNmWaEPBtMuoU2AgCA3pqIA5D6mogDdGVhbW1haWwtd2Vi\\"], [\\"user-agent\\", \\"Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/143.0.0.0 Safari/537.36\\"], [\\"accept\\", \\"application/json;jmapVersion=rfc-8621\\"], [\\"sec-ch-ua\\", \\"\\"Brave\\";v=\\"143\\", \\"Chromium\\";v=\\"143\\", \\"Not A(Brand\\";v=\\"24\\"\\"], [\\"content-type\\", \\"application/json\\"], [\\"sec-ch-ua-mobile\\", \\"?0\\"], [\\"sec-gpc\\", \\"1\\"], [\\"accept-language\\", \\"en-GB,en;q=0.5\\"], [\\"origin\\", \\"https://fedora.tailb3000.ts.net\\"], [\\"sec-fetch-site\\", \\"cross-site\\"], [\\"sec-fetch-mode\\", \\"cors\\"], [\\"sec-fetch-dest\\", \\"empty\\"], [\\"referer\\", \\"https://fedora.tailb3000.ts.net/\\"], [\\"accept-encoding\\", \\"gzip, deflate, br, zstd\\"]], contents = \\"{\\"using\\":[\\"urn:ietf:params:jmap:submission\\",\\"urn:ietf:params:jmap:mail\\",\\"urn:ietf:params:jmap:core\\"],\\"methodCalls\\":[[\\"Email/set\\",{\\"accountId\\":\\"c\\",\\"create\\":{\\"dc024370-f8aa-11f0-8e8f-4fa55faa3869\\":{\\"mailboxIds\\":{\\"h\\":true},\\"subject\\":\\"test mail to self\\",\\"from\\":[{\\"name\\":\\"User 1\\",\\"email\\":\\"user1@test.com\\"}],\\"to\\":[{\\"name\\":null,\\"email\\":\\"user1@test.com\\"}],\\"cc\\":[],\\"bcc\\":[],\\"replyTo\\":[{\\"name\\":null,\\"email\\":\\"user1@test.com\\"}],\\"htmlBody\\":[{\\"partId\\":\\"dc021c60-f8aa-11f0-8e8f-4fa55faa3869\\",\\"type\\":\\"text/html\\"}],\\"bodyValues\\":{\\"dc021c60-f8aa-11f0-8e8f-4fa55faa3869\\":{\\"value\\":\\"<div>test mail to self body.</div>\\",\\"isEncodingProblem\\":false,\\"isTruncated\\":false,\\"header:Accept-Language:asText\\":\\"fr-FR, en-US, vi-VN, ru-RU, ar-TN, it-IT, de-DE\\",\\"header:Content-Language:asText\\":\\"en-GB\\"}},\\"header:User-Agent:asText\\":\\"Twake-Mail/0.23.1 Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/143.0.0.0 Safari/537.36\\"}}},\\"c0\\"],[\\"EmailSubmission/set\\",{\\"accountId\\":\\"c\\",\\"create\\":{\\"dc024371-f8aa-11f0-8e8f-4fa55faa3869\\":{\\"identityId\\":\\"b\\",\\"emailId\\":\\"#dc024370-f8aa-11f0-8e8f-4fa55faa3869\\",\\"envelope\\":{\\"mailFrom\\":{\\"email\\":\\"user1@test.com\\"},\\"rcptTo\\":[{\\"email\\":\\"user1@test.com\\"}]}}},\\"onSuccessUpdateEmail\\":{\\"#dc024371-f8aa-11f0-8e8f-4fa55faa3869\\":{\\"mailboxIds/e\\":true,\\"mailboxIds/h\\":null,\\"keywords/$seen\\":true,\\"keywords/$draft\\":null}}},\\"c1\\"]]}\\", size = 1334"}],"total":1}}", code = 200, size = 2716

Stalwart Version

v0.15.x

Installation Method

Binary (Linux)

Database Backend

RocksDB

Blob Storage

RocksDB

Search Engine

Internal

Directory Backend

Internal

Additional Context

No response

I acknowledge that:

• I agree to follow the project's Code of Conduct.
• I have searched the Stalwart repository (both open and closed Discussions and Issues) and confirm this is not a duplicate.
• I have reviewed the documentation and FAQ and confirm that my issue is NOT addressed there.
• I have set the logging level to trace and included relevant log output if applicable.

[mdecimus]

This looks like a configuration issue. Set the log level to trace and check your logs. Also make sure the emails are not going to the Spam folder.

[silbox-ch]

This is not a configuration issue — it's a bug in the message deduplication logic during local delivery.

Root Cause

When sending an email to yourself via JMAP (EmailSubmission/set), the flow is:

1. Email/set creates the draft in Drafts
2. EmailSubmission/set triggers onSuccessUpdateEmail which moves the email to Sent (changing mailboxIds)
3. Stalwart queues the message for SMTP delivery
4. The async SMTP queue delivers locally, calling email_ingest()

At step 4, email_ingest() finds that the Message-ID already exists in the account (it's in Sent from step 2). The deduplication logic at crates/email/src/message/ingest.rs lines ~194-224 then checks whether the duplicate is in INBOX_ID or JUNK_ID:

if !cache
    .in_mailboxes(&[INBOX_ID, JUNK_ID])
    .any(|m| thread_result.duplicate_ids.contains(&m.document_id))
{
    // silently drops the message as "duplicate"
}

Since the existing copy is in Sent (not Inbox or Junk), the condition is true and the message is silently dropped. The email never reaches the Inbox.

This is why IMAP/SMTP works: Thunderbird copies to Sent after delivery via SMTP submission, so the Message-ID doesn't exist yet during email_ingest(). But with JMAP, the onSuccessUpdateEmail moves to Sent before the async local delivery happens.

Fix

The dedup check should also consider Sent and Drafts mailboxes. If the duplicate exists only in Sent or Drafts, it's a legitimate self-send and should proceed to deliver to Inbox.

I have a working fix with a regression test on my fork:
Branch: silbox-ch/stalwart:fix/jmap-send-to-self

Changes:

• crates/email/src/message/ingest.rs: Added SENT_ID and DRAFTS_ID check before skipping duplicates
• tests/src/jmap/mail/delivery.rs: Added regression test (import to Sent + LMTP delivery, assert Inbox count increases)

Happy to open a PR if you'd like to review the code.

[SinghNanak]

thanks for the initiative

[SinghNanak]

hopefully it can be merged soon after a review

[MartinTerp]

just encountered the same "issue", hope you will create the PR :)

[silbox-ch]

@mdecimus I have the fix ready on our fork (fix/jmap-send-to-self) and would like to open a PR, but I'm getting a CreatePullRequest permission error.

Could you enable PR permissions for the silbox-ch org? The change is minimal (10 lines in ingest.rs + regression test) and I'm happy to sign the FLA.

[mdecimus]

Sorry, can't do that now, please read contributing.md.

Edit: this will be fixed in v0.16 though.

[silbox-ch]

@mdecimus I did read CONTRIBUTING.md — it says:

not accepting external contributions, except for bug fixes and small, well-scoped changes

This is exactly that: a bug fix, 10 lines changed in one file, with a regression test. The fix addresses a confirmed bug where JMAP self-send silently drops messages due to the dedup logic not accounting for Sent/Drafts mailboxes.

The branch is ready for review whenever you have time: fix/jmap-send-to-self

No rush — happy to wait until it fits your schedule.