On 24 February 2018 at 16:04 Neil Jerram <neil@ossau.homelinux.net> wrote:
Aki Tuomi <aki.tuomi@dovecot.fi> writes:
On 24 February 2018 at 15:47 Neil Jerram <neil@ossau.homelinux.net> wrote:
[...]
Feb 24 10:24:24 arudy dovecot[1712]: imap(neil): Warning: Transaction log file /home/neil/dovecot-mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.log was locked for 98 seconds (Mailbox was synchronized) [...]
You are using mbox format. This is ... bit slow. =)
When you move mails between mbox files, it has to rewrite the entire mbox file every time. You should probably start using maildir or sdbox instead.
Ah, right, thanks.
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...)
If so, I'll start looking at how to migrate, given that my system is Postfix + Dovecot. If you have any particular recommendations or migration pointers for a system like that, I'd appreciate them.
Best wishes - Neil
Yes. You deffo are looking at several reasons for slowness.
I can only recommend moving into maildir or sdbox format, and probably new HDD too.
https://wiki2.dovecot.org/Tools/Doveadm/Sync here is example of 'converting' between mailbox formats using dsync. You should also read https://wiki2.dovecot.org/Migration/MailFormat
mbox format has been known to act up with dsync occasionally, so I recommend using
doveadm backup maildir:~/Maildir
if you want to give it a try, instead of doveadm sync. Backup does dsync too, but it only works one way.
Aki