mbox vs maildir vs better formats [Re: Invalid UTF-8 byte? (was: Re: utf)]
On Wed, 04 Apr 2018, Nicolas George wrote:
> Don Armstrong (2018-04-04):
> > You should consider looking at using Maildir with notmuch and using
> > things which integrate notmuch.[1]
>
> Maildir is not that much better than mbox. Sure, it eliminates most of
> its worse flaws, but it brings flaws of its own, like trashing the
> inode and dentries caches, requiring extra disk reads and cache due to
> partial file ends, or causing much more seeking (granted, this one is
> becoming less of an issue with non-mechanical storage).
There are definitely better formats than Maildir, like Dovecot's
multi-dbox.[1]
These issues are why almost everyone who uses Maildir just uses it as
the backing message store and uses the index on top to do avoid ever
reading all of the messages in the Maildir.
1: https://wiki2.dovecot.org/MailboxFormat/dbox
--
Don Armstrong https://www.donarmstrong.com
A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.
-- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
Reply to: