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# Shared Seen State

IMAP users maintain the information on whether or not a message is marked as read using so-called flags on the messages. The flag for marking a message as read or unread is `\Seen`.

Normally, each individual user has their own copy of which messages they did or did not yet read. This is not necessarily ideal, such as for a shared mailbox `shared/info@example.org` – a team of users may be picking messages from this mailbox as if it were a queue, and it would therefore be really useful if one team member could see whether another team member has already read the message.

Cyrus IMAP features the ability to share `\Seen` flags between all users with access to a mailbox to facilitate precisely this and other use-cases.

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