[kdepim-users] adding maildir files

[Jörg Schaible]

Ingo Klöcker wrote:

> On Wednesday 04 May 2016 21:24:01 Johann Rohwer wrote:
>> It seems the maildir implementation is different in akonadi as
>> compared to dovecot (and standard maildir). Consider a mail folder
>> structure:
>> fol1/fol2/fol3
>> 
>> When creating this in kmail under local folders (i.e. a local akonadi
>> maildir resource), the directory structure on disk is as follows:
>> fol1/{cur|new|tmp}
>> .fol1.directory/fol2/{cur|new|tmp}
>> .fol1.directory/.fol2.directory/fol3/{cur|new|tmp}
>> 
>> In dovecot (and standard maildir) the directory structure is as
>> follows: .fol1/{cur|new|tmp}
>> .fol1.fol2/{cur|new|tmp}
>> .fol1.fol2.fol3/{cur|new|tmp}
> 
> To be precise, this is not standard maildir (because standard maildir
> only defines the on disk representation of single folders; see
> https://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html), but Maildir++
> (http://www.courier-mta.org/imap/README.maildirquota.html).
> 
>  
>> There is no nested directory structure on disk and mail (sub)folders
>> are indicated by a dot in the filename. I have noticed this before
>> and it is an incompatibility that prevents simple copying from a
>> dovecot server to a local akonadi maildir resource. Anyone know the
>> reason for this difference? The dovecot implementation seems cleaner.
> 
> The reason is simple: Almost 20 years ago, when support for subfolders
> was added to KMail that's what the developers came up with. Back then
> Maildir++ probably hadn't been "invented" yet. (The Wikipedia article on
> Maildir reads "Varshavchik, Sam (1998) Maildir++ and Maildir quotas
> which has the Maildir++ specification buried within it".)
> 
> Why was this never changed?
> Reason 1: Backwards compatibility (aka inertia ;-))
> Reason 2: There never was a compelling enough reason for changing it.


https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=294215

- Jörg