[GLLUG] mbox or maildir

[Marshal Newrock]

On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 21:04:19 -0500
"Jason Folkens" <jason at acd.net> wrote:

> the one good thing that came from qmail is maildir
> 
> ...  and i think thats about it.
> 
> maildir works well because if you have multiple MTA's delivering to
> the same mailbox, you won't get a corrupted inbox.   the same is not
> true for mbox... Since mbox is one contiguous file, if two apps write
> to the same file, you either get a dirty write, or a corrupted
> file...   Neither of which are desireable
> 
> plus, certain good mail apps only use maildir (like courier imap
> etc...) I'm not sure wether or not dovecot supports mbox, but I doubt
> it.

Dovecot supports maildir, mbox, and its own dbox format, although I
don't know what dbox is, really.

As stated, there are no locking issues with maildir.  It's also easier
to grep and find a specific message.  imap works better with maildir,
as it can just read the beginning of each file for the headers, rather
than scanning the entire file.  I'm a maildir fan.

-- 
Marshal Newrock
Ideal Solution, LLC - http://www.idealso.com