Bad Signature - Both Roundcube and Squirrelmail webmail cannot search for anything + cannot open many emails because there are more than 200, 000 emails in my Inbox

[Sam Kuper]

On Mon, Apr 18, 2022 at 03:23:10PM -0700, Joseph Tam wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Apr 2022, Paul Kudla (SCOM.CA Internet) wrote:
>> As for the 200,000+ emails in the inbox no email system was ever
>> designed for that - ever.
>> ...
>> no system will support 200,000 + emails, even if the server can
>> handle that and running imap where you only download the headers the
>> email client would just spin trying to update the email box
>> constantantly.
> 
> I think Gmail does exaclty this -- their mail system really has one
> big mesage repository, and they simulate mailboxes by using labels.
> They seem to encourage piling the message high and using their search
> or auto-labelling features to find what you're looking for.
> 
> Users of mine who previously used Gmail expect our mail system to
> behave similarly, and I have to break them of their habit to packrat
> all their mail into their INBOX.

Gmail is *advertised* as working that way.

In practice, though, Gmail used to exhibit search/browse bugs (e.g.
failing to identify all relevant mails/threads) annoyingly often.  This
was sometimes true via the official Gmail web interface, and was
especially true via the official mobile app, on at least some platforms.

Maybe those issues have been fixed - I don't know.  But unless they have
been, Gmail is not really a panacea.

In any case, for Dovecot, Joseph & Paul's advice to divide mail into
folders where possible seems sensible - especially for access over IMAP.

Sam