Consider that dirlist-format %r only considers directly descendants, while a maildir can have multiple levels of subdirectories.

It would be useful to get a number for the unreads anywhere under a directory.

While we're at it, it would be great to have "unread" seperately; for small screens it makes a huge difference in screen real estate.

I work with a lot of folders. So far I haven't found a terminal flow that beats webmail or desktop. I think this feature, together with the important https://todo.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/aerc2/228, are the two missing pieces to bring aerc there.

So my proposal:

#Add new format specifiers for dirlist-format:

%e: recent messages
%E: recent messages (recursive)
%u: unseen messages
%U: unseen messages (recursive)
%c: total message count
%C: total message count (recursive)