Re: [Evolution] using maildir format

[Patrick O'Callaghan <poc usb ve>]

On Wed, 2008-12-31 at 11:04 +1030, Dr Mark H Phillips wrote:
> Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > > The reason I am trying to move to maildir is that I have
> > > a large number of stored emails (which I don't want
> > > to delete) and mbox seems not to handle this situation
> > > well.
> > >     
> >
> > Are you having some specific problem?
> >   
> Performance is the main issue.  Although a few years ago
> a hard disk problem meant that I lost an entire mbox
> file.  (If I had each email in a separate file I may have lost
> much less.)

Very possibly.

> A while ago I tried cutting down mbox size by chopping
> off older emails into a separate mbox and trying to use
> evolutions import facility to import them.  But the import
> facility died on me.  I guess I could try it again and see
> if it works now.

Stupid question: are you compacting the mbox files regularly (i.e.
expunging them)? Some people have huge mbox files filled with trah
without realizing it.

Apart from that, the big problem with large mbox files is when mail
software has to read the whole file to index it. The latest version of
Evo uses an SQL database for this, which is supposed to be a lot faster
(as long as it stays in sync ...).

Note that maildir-based systems need to open large numbers of smallish
files, which also has a cost.

I do agree about robustness however.

> > That's a matter of opinion. Maildir was designed to permit multiple
> > concurrent updates of a mailbox without locking, and is thus suitable
> > for mail stores kept on a fileserver (e.g. NFS). For local mailboxes
> > this aspect shouldn't matter. It also follows the one-message-per-file
> > model rather than mbox's one-folder-per-file so there may be performance
> > differences, but it's not a simple case of one always being better than
> > the other.
> >   
> One-message-per-file sounds like a much more robust
> solution.  My understanding is that mbox has long been
> regarded as a less than ideal format.
> > Maildir was discussed in the last few days on this list. Take a look at
> > the archives (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/evolution-list/).
> >   
> Thanks.  I found a thread in August entitled: "How to use
> maildir as storage format?"  Is this the thread you meant?
> (I couldn't find anything more recent than this.)

I meant something much more recent:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/evolution-list/2008-December/msg00186.html

poc