> It's possible but not the real problem.  the real problem is inherent in
> the mbox format, all the messages are kept in one file and the entire file
> has to be read into memory.  Maildir helps because each message is a
> seperate file.  (But the downside is it could waste more space on disk
> though this can be worked around with by using file systems like
> reiserfs.)

Certainly.. this was just a workaround without changing how anything
worked, as 6 months of mail and logs written to the /var and /home
partitions definitely became quite fragmented.. maildir stuff shouldn't
have this problem -- and I am using reiserfs, so regardless of the fact
that I have ~13GB of free space to waste, I don't think the 4k thing
will be a problem.

> > In any case, I'm trying to find a way to make my IMAP access faster.
> > I've considered converting to Maildir format but can't find an easy way
> > to convert my existing mailboxes.
> 
> Debians' uw-imapd package already has the maildir patches the other
> respondent was talking about applied.  So an easy way to do this would be
> to:
> 
> 1.  Create a new mailbox as a maildir.

Hrmf, how do I do this?  Can't find any decent documentation, except on
the basic _format_ of maildir..

I tried creating ~/Maildir, ~/.Maildir, ~/maildir, and ~/.maildir and a
folder inside each called '.lists.debian-user' but I am unable to
subscribe to this folder in any of the cases mentioned..

Read some info on the uw-imap maildir patch, but there appear to be
several patches, all of which build on each other, and I don't know
which Debian uses..

perhaps I need to change from sendmail to postfix first, as one of the
patches suggested that if INBOX is a maildir, it will _then_ create new
folders as maildir..

> 2. Using your mail client, move all the messages from the old folder to
>    the new one.
> 
> The IMAP server will take care of the format conversion for you.
> 
> although I've forgotten the exact voodoo right now, it is in fact easy to
> make procmail deliver to maildirs.

apparently all that's necessary is changing:

:0:

to

:0

since maildir doesn't require locking, and adding a / to the end of
mailbox names, i.e.:

:0
* ^List-Id.*[EMAIL PROTECTED]
.lists.debian-user/

> > If there are ways that I can improve performance _without_ mucking my
> > config around, it would be preferred,
> 
> How about deleting some of your mail? :)

NEVER!!! :)  I have considered archiving some of it, but would prefer to
consider this a future project after making _general_ performance more
reasonable..

Thanks!

-Justin

-- 
Justin Ryan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

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