Maildir in Thunderbird
Revision Information
- Revision id: 96963
- Created:
- Creator: Roland Tanglao
- Comment: add that it's only availalbe in tb38 and above
- Reviewed: Yes
- Reviewed:
- Reviewed by: rtanglao
- Is approved? Yes
- Is current revision? No
- Ready for localization: Yes
- Readied for localization:
- Readied for localization by: rtanglao
Revision Source
Revision Content
Thunderbird has had hidden support (Maildir is disabled by default) for the Maildir mail storage format for several years but Maildir is still not 100% ready for users. This article explains the format change and how to test Maildir starting in Thunderbird 38 (Maildir is not ready for testing prior to version 38).
Maildir is a single file per email (EML) unlike the current default monolithic single file format which is one file per folder (known a mbox). This storage format has significant benefits:
- Backups are easier because amount of data needed to be backed up is reduced to just those emails that have changed since the last backup.
- It is easier for anti-virus to scan emails in individual files and infected mails can be removed without the loss of all the other mail in the folder as often occurs today with anti-virus software which cannot handle multiple emails in one file.
This is a major change for Thunderbird because it changes the mail storage mechanism. The development team have spent a significant amount of time developing maildir .
However due to a lack of time, and testers, before Thunderbird 38 was released the actual underlying changes have not had the extensive manual testing that would normally occur for such a major change.
How to turn on Maildir
Here's how to turn on Maildir:
- Backup your email. If you don't know how to backup your email, then you are not qualified to test Maildir.
- Click the Application menu button .
- Click . and then
- Click and then click .
- Next to "Message Store Type for new accounts", select .
- Any email account created from now on will use Maildir (existing accounts will continue to use mbox). Please file a bug if you encounter any Maildir issues.