Thunderbird/Maildir

Maildir

Hi,

Pluggable Stores explains very nicely why we need other pluggable stores.

My project this summer under R Kent James (:rkent) was to make our existing test suite to pass successfully with maildir enabled as the default mailbox storage format.

We have the implementation of maildir mail store in the backend. And users can enable it in Thunderbird. But, while making these tests pass with maildir, we found a number of issues in the backend implementation and fixed most of them. And, we hope that soon we will be able to allow maildir without any fear of dataloss.

Enable Maildir mailbox format

If you want to experience maildir, you need to set the string pref "mail.serverDefaultStoreContractID" to "@mozilla.org/msgstore/maildirstore;1".

Though, we aren't sure of the side-effects of using maildir as the default store on a profile that was created on Berkeley mailbox(mbox) format; so we suggest you to create a fresh profile to work with maildir so as to avoid any dataloss that might occur.

Operations now successful with Maildir

There are still a few issues left to be addressed with maildir implementation. But a number of issues were addressed. So far,

• The pop3 filters work reliably with maildir. See bug 827048
• All local folder operations are successful with maildir now. See bug 1028548
• Movemail download now works with maildir. See bug 1027947
• Quarantine filter moves now work with maildir. See bug 1044456
• Sub folder directories are created at the expected place now. See bug 1017939

Operations still unsuccessful with Maildir

The major issues left with maildir are that of IMAP.

• IMAP filters don't work with maildir.
• Rename of IMAP folders is in progress. See bug 857436

Methods that may result in Process crash

Please don't use CopyService for any copy operations in the source code if you are using maildir. As of now, we haven't addressed this bit and copying using CopyService results in process crash.

I will keep editing this page to keep everyone updated with the status of maildir implementation in Thunderbird.

Thanks.