[Dovecot] Migrating mbox to maildir

Timo Sirainen tss at iki.fi
Thu Aug 14 23:13:08 EEST 2008


On Aug 14, 2008, at 3:46 PM, Mike Hobbs wrote:

> Sorry to bother everyone but I was wondering if it is possible for  
> Dovecot to handle mbox AND maildir at the same time?

Sure.

> I'd like to use maildir with all my new users, but I'd like to be  
> able to continue using mbox for my old users and slowly convert them  
> as I get time.

Here are some possibilities:

a) Let Dovecot auto-detect the mailbox location by leaving  
mail_location setting empty. If ~/Maildir exists it's used, if not  
mbox is used (assuming you're using a standard ~/mail location or such).

b) Explicitly specify mail_location for each user in userdb. This  
requires that you use a userdb that allows extra fields (so passwd  
won't work) and remember to update it after each user is converted.

c) Like a) but do the auto-detection yourself using post-login  
scripting: http://wiki.dovecot.org/PostLoginScripting. This won't work  
if you're using Dovecot's deliver though.

d) Let Dovecot do the conversion for you. When a user logs in, his/her  
mails are converted. http://wiki.dovecot.org/Plugins/Convert

It's even possible for the same user to use both mbox and maildir at  
the same time using namespaces.

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