Version controlled (git) Maildir generated by Dovecot

[Gerald Galster]

>> ---------- Původní e-mail ----------
>> Od: Gerald Galster <list+dovecot at gcore.biz>
>> Komu: dovecot at dovecot.org
>> Datum: 7. 10. 2020 14:36:43
>> Předmět: Re: Version controlled (git) Maildir generated by Dovecot
>> 
>>> Could you please tell me / do you know if those dovecot* files have to be also backed / archived?
>> 
>> IIRC the plain files from cur/ and new/ should suffice.
>> 
>> You can try it: create a new IMAP folder, then close your mail app.
>> Copy some mail files from another cur/ to this imap folder's cur/ directory.
>> Reopen your mail app and see if new mails are fetched.


> Or on a testing system I can just stop Dovecot, remove everything that doesn't start with a number and restart Dovecot and connect Thunderbird and see the results. Thank you.

This depends on what "everything" means.

I suggested to create a new imap folder because

- the Maildir is clean (necessary folders, correct permissions, no emails, ...)

- neither the server nor the client (thunderbird) did cache anything yet
  (no cache-invalidation, no re-download of old mails, ...)

- the client (thunderbird) created and autosubscribed the folder
  (subscribed folders are also stored on the server, like acls, ...)

With your approach you may (or may not) test more than just restoring a few mails inside an empty Maildir.

Best regards
Gerald