On Monday 16 November 2009 12:35:35 Halim Issa wrote: > On 16/11/2009, Andreas Ntaflos <d...@dword.org> wrote: > > On Friday 13 November 2009 15:00:09 Halim Issa wrote: > >> Hello, > >> > >> I'm about to migrate a number of existing users who have been > >> using POP3 with emails stored locally in KMail's Maildir format > >> into an IMAP solution based on Dovecot. > >> > >> Will it be possible to simply move all the KDE Maildir folders > >> from the local PCs to the Maildir folder on the IMAP server > >> running Dovecot and then have the emails accessible on the server, > >> or will this most likely mess up the Dovecot index files? > >> > >> If this causes index file trouble, is there any way to force a > >> re-indexing of all these files, or is there another recommended > >> way of migrating up to 7 years of email communication from local > >> hosts to the IMAP server, for later putting them in folders? > > > > I don't think the migration of the Maildir structure itself is the > > problem. Dovecot has no problem reading it, no matter where it came > > from, as long as it is a proper Maildir structure. Existing indexes > > should not be affected. > > > > The indexes that KMail writes, however, will probably not migrate > > well or at all. I do not know anything about the index format KMail > > uses but converting it to something Dovecot understands and accepts > > seems troublesome and difficult to me. > > > > This means that you can copy all existing, local Maildirs over to > > the server (you can even put them in subfolders in existing > > accounts) and Dovecot will read them just fine. But it also means > > that Dovecot will very probably present them to the user as new > > messages, never seen before. > > > > But do yourself a favour and test any procedure you plan on > > implementing properly and extensively before actually implementing > > it. Otherwise it could end up messy and irreparable. > > Thanks much for your thorough answer! I'll make sure to test > extensively. > > One thing came to mind - would it be possible to use Dovecot and > Disconnected IMAP itself for the transfer, and perhaps thus keep the > indexes? > If I move the messages from the local mailbox to the IMAP mailbox > from within Kmail it should perhaps keep the status?
Interesting idea, but I don't know how well or even if KMail handles moving messages from one account to another. In any case it seems worth a try. > Also - is there any documentation anywhere (or tips on better google > search terms) on what is stored in these indexes? I suppose apart > from Read/New status, it also contains whether or not there have been > replies to the mail and on what date the email was replied to? If you are talking about the indexes KMail keeps I suppose you should try one of the KDE-PIM-related mailing lists. For Dovecot's index files you should ask Timo or browse the wiki, maybe there is some documentation about it somewhere. I myself don't know anything about the format of any of the index files, sorry. Andreas -- Andreas Ntaflos Vienna, Austria GPG Fingerprint: 6234 2E8E 5C81 C6CB E5EC 7E65 397C E2A8 090C A9B4
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.