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Thunderbird and Maildir

  • 5 àwọn èsì
  • 0 ní àwọn ìṣòro yìí
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  • Èsì tí ó kẹ́hìn lọ́wọ́ Rick

Stephen
Stephen
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Context: I have set Thunderbird (version 128.13.0esr) to user Mail Dir. I am using a RHEL10 based distro (Almalinux10). Everything is working fine with received email. I need to manually process the received mail folder with an automation utility I had written in the past that was based on a Maildir folder structure.

I read through the article: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/maildir-thunderbird - and noticed that it was around 6 years old and could not find any updated articles re. the current status of Maildir and Thunderbird.

My question(s): I noticed that the Thunderbird Maildir structure under the email profile does not seem to have a folder named 'new', it only has 'cur' and 'tmp'. This does kind of make sense, as from what I understand, the 'new' folder is intended for messages that have been delivered, but not seen by any email applications. I am guessing Thunderbird has the email received in its user inbox, so it belongs in the 'cur' directory as it has been 'seen' by Thunderbird?

I was just wanting to confirm that it is that case that all email received by Thunderbird using a Maildir directory structure will always appear in the 'cur' folder. For reference, in my previous setup, fetchmail was retrieving email from a remote email server and as a result all email received appeared in the 'new' directory. My automation application processed all email in the the 'new' folder and archived them once processed.

Thank you.

Context: I have set Thunderbird (version 128.13.0esr) to user Mail Dir. I am using a RHEL10 based distro (Almalinux10). Everything is working fine with received email. I need to manually process the received mail folder with an automation utility I had written in the past that was based on a Maildir folder structure. I read through the article: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/maildir-thunderbird - and noticed that it was around 6 years old and could not find any updated articles re. the current status of Maildir and Thunderbird. My question(s): I noticed that the Thunderbird Maildir structure under the email profile does not seem to have a folder named 'new', it only has 'cur' and 'tmp'. This does kind of make sense, as from what I understand, the 'new' folder is intended for messages that have been delivered, but not seen by any email applications. I am guessing Thunderbird has the email received in its user inbox, so it belongs in the 'cur' directory as it has been 'seen' by Thunderbird? I was just wanting to confirm that it is that case that all email received by Thunderbird using a Maildir directory structure will always appear in the 'cur' folder. For reference, in my previous setup, fetchmail was retrieving email from a remote email server and as a result all email received appeared in the 'new' directory. My automation application processed all email in the the 'new' folder and archived them once processed. Thank you.

Ti ṣàtúnṣe nípa Stephen

All Replies (5)

Matt
Matt
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Thunderbird does not have a maildir implementation. The developer who wrote it called it a maildir like implementation and constantly corrected anyone that called it maildir.

See this bug for discussion regarding a maildir implementation https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58308

Here for the source and details of the initial maildir like implementation despite the bug being about plug-able store I recall it also being the vehicle used for the maildir like implementation. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=402392

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=845952 discusses blocking bugs to making it the default. Most useful if you have some idea of pushing it into any sort of production environment.

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Stephen
Stephen Ìbéèrè olóhun
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G'day Matt, thank for the follow-up and the links.

I don't need a full Maildir implementation for what I am doing - just needed to confirm its operation within the Thunderbird environment - so I reckon I have what I need to proceed.

Thanks

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AK
AK
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Stephen said
I don't need a full Maildir implementation for what I am doing

Hi Stephen, I am considering migrating my Thunderbird local dowloaded mail format to maildir. My purpose is - ocassionally reading and writing from Thunderbird; but mostly doing that from Mail.app (on mac). However I want the maildir format so that I can backup mails with ease with compression and deduplication which becomes tricky with large mbox files, also if I ever have to maildir format is kinda more human readable IMHO.

Would you mind sharing how much of maildir is present in Thunderbird as of now? Is it barebone or bug prone or both?

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Wayne Mery
Wayne Mery
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What is supported, and not supported, pretty much hasn't changed in 10 years. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/maildir-thunderbird and the wiki page.

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Rick
Rick
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AK said

Stephen said
I don't need a full Maildir implementation for what I am doing

Hi Stephen, I am considering migrating my Thunderbird local dowloaded mail format to maildir. My purpose is - ocassionally reading and writing from Thunderbird; but mostly doing that from Mail.app (on mac). However I want the maildir format so that I can backup mails with ease with compression and deduplication which becomes tricky with large mbox files, also if I ever have to maildir format is kinda more human readable IMHO.

Would you mind sharing how much of maildir is present in Thunderbird as of now? Is it barebone or bug prone or both?

I used maildir in Thunderbird for a while until comments about bugs from someone on this forum made me nervous.

Now I keep my use of local folders in Thunderbird minimal, and I use the excellent add-on ImportExportToolsNG to export, in eml format, messages that I do not need in Thunderbird ito folders in the file system.

One trade-off: if you ever want to import messages from Thunderbird into Apple Mail, they must be in mbox format.

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Béèrè ìbéèrè

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