[Dovecot] Moving from MBOX to Maildir or DBox ?

[Daniel Luttermann]

Frank Bonnet wrote on 16.09.2010:

> Hello

> Actually we use MBOX format for all our IMAP access but users complain
> they cannot create subfolders in imap folders, of course they cannot
> because of MBOX format ...

> I need gurus advices on changing mailbox format

> Maildir of Dbox ?

> What would be the safest way to go ?

> Note : we extensively use Thunderbird here.

> Thanks

I'm using mdbox since a few months and I've no problems at all (but
it's a smaller mail server). I think mdbox should perform better in
large installations. For me one drawback is that you can not easily
restore a single email of an user if he has accidently deleted one -
this is no problem with maildir and maybe it's also possible with
sdbox.

With mdbox it's needed that you "purge" deleted mails. When a user
deletes an email only the index is updated but the disk space is not
freed automatically.

One of the next Dovecot version comes with support for "SIS" (Single
Instance Storage). With SIS and sbox or mdbox you can save
attachments in seperate files. When you find this feature useful then
you must use one of Dovecot's own mailbox formats.

See this blog entry:
http://blog.dovecot.org/2010/07/single-instance-attachment-storage.html


--
Daniel