Re: [Evolution] 2 GB mbox, Cannot appent message to mbox file.

[Patrick O'Callaghan <poc usb ve>]

On Fri, 2011-01-28 at 14:00 -0800, Ernie Dunbar wrote:
> I've done a bit of research on this error, and usually the answer has been
> "Oh, it's your filesystem file size limit you're running into".
>
> But I'm using ext3 on this filesystem. That means that the limit on the
> mbox file size is internal to Evolution.

Evo used to use a signed integer as 32-bit file index, hence 2GB. The
latest version has done away with that.

> No, I am not going to go through the last 4 years' worth of email and
> delete some of it. Maybe I'm just one of those crazy people who thinks
> that communications are important and should be archived, but I don't
> think I'm alone either (ask an historian).

How about actually archiving it (i.e. moving older message to separate
folders), which is what people generally do? Or better still, keep it on
an IMAP server where you can reach it from anywhere.

> Moreover, why on earth would Evolution use that archaic file format? It
> makes displaying (and sorting, and searching) messages tediously slow and
> CPU hungry. Especially when you have tens of thousands of messages.

Because it's the lowest common denominator that every mail client can
read.

> If there's a fix for this problem, I'd like to know what it is. Aside from
> deleting messages that is.

Use Maildir-format folders for your local mail. Then you have one file
per message instead of one file per folder.

poc