Issue with IMAP SINCE ’Search‘ Timezone Handling

[Wanglintc]

Description:
I am using the node-imap package in my Node.js application, and my email server is hosted on Alibaba Cloud in China. My Node.js server is also located in China, operating in the China Standard Time (CST) timezone, which is UTC+8.

Here's my issue: when I perform an IMAP search using the SINCE condition with a date string like '2024-08-05', it seems like the IMAP server interprets this date as '2024-08-04 16:00:00' UTC due to the timezone difference. This results in missing emails that arrived between 2024-08-05 00:00:00 CST and 2024-08-05 08:00:00 CST.

Questions:

1. How can I ensure that the SINCE condition in the IMAP search takes into account the local timezone (CST) and does not miss any emails?
2. Is there a recommended approach to handle this timezone difference when performing IMAP searches with the SINCE condition?
3. Are there any best practices for ensuring consistent time handling between the client and server when both are in different timezones?

Any help or guidance on this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[mscdex]

Probably the easiest method is to convert between timezones using Intl.DateTimeFormat.

[Edu4r0]

@Wanglintc were you able to solve this problem?