On 2018-02-24 (07:04 MST), Neil Jerram <neil@ossau.homelinux.net> wrote:
My INBOX file has 22990 messages. Is the slowness that I am seeing definitely expected for an mbox of that size? (It may also be relevant that the HDD it's stored on is pretty old now, and has been known to report SMART errors...)
back int he dark ages I would send and alert to users if their inbox for over 1,000 messages because an mbox that large drove the server to its knees and made merely logging in to mail take an excruciating amount of time. If they didn't fix it I'd archive their inbox and start over.
I am astonished your machine can process an mbox with over 22 times that many messages.
https://wiki1.dovecot.org/Migration/MailFormat
That page doesn't exist on the wiki for dovecot 2, but that script to convert mbox to milder should still work. Obviously, keep backups and such.
-- Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change?