# Asterisk Project : Separate vs. Shared E-mail Accounts

Added by mdavenport , edited by mdavenport on Aug 31, 2010

As administrator you will have to decide if you want to send the voicemail messages to a separate IMAP account or use each user's existing IMAP mailbox for voicemail storage. The IMAP storage mechanism will work either way.

By implementing a single IMAP mailbox, the user will see voicemail messages appear in the same INBOX as other messages. The disadvantage of this method is that if the IMAP server does NOT support UIDPLUS, Asterisk voicemail will expunge ALL messages marked for deletion when the user exits the voicemail system, not just the VOICEMAIL messages marked for deletion.

By implementing separate IMAP mailboxes for voicemail and email, voicemail expunges will not remove regular email flagged for deletion.