migrating from mbox to maildir format

[Chriz1977]

Hi

Can anyone explain how to do this? Is there a script in the /scripts directory to do it automatically?

Cheers
Chriz

[cPanelDavidG]

/scripts/convert2maildir

[Chriz1977]

Is there anything i should consider before doing this? (IE will it effect the mail in the current queue?)

Cheers

[chirpy]

It won't affect the email in the queue. While the migration is in progress all in or outbound email is queued until the process completes. Clients won't be able to POP their email or use IMAP until their account has been migrated during the process (they'll get an error).

The only thing to check is that your OS update procedure works correctly, e.g. yum or up2date. Also, bear in mind that it can take some time to run, anything from a few minutes to several hours depending on the amount of email within the mail accounts.

[cyanide]

I'm about to do this as well.
I heard that email sitting on the server in someone's account may be lost during the conversion.
Is this true?

Also, are there any impacts involved, when transferring accounts from a server with mbox to a server with maildir?

[chirpy]

I'm about to do this as well.
I heard that email sitting on the server in someone's account may be lost during the conversion.
Is this true?

Never heard of or seen that happen.

Also, are there any impacts involved, when transferring accounts from a server with mbox to a server with maildir?

They should automatically be converted. If not, you can simply run the conversion script again and it will convert those emails to maildir.

[tweakservers]

usually I will run it for 2 or 3 times for the convert scripts to make sure all the email account is fully converted.It's better than later user's email account fail to work and you realize their email account is not fully converted

[cyanide]

Thanks for the reply, chirpy...
I must've mis-read about emails disappearing.

We did a test run on a client who volunteered to be a guinea pig.
He had about 2,000 emails in webmail and we transferred his account from a server with mbox to one that had maildir and wouldn't you know the emails transferred nicely.
Actually, watching the transfer occur, we saw it saying mail conversion. - nice!

[cpanelnick]

The most common problem we see is people with tons of accounts killing the conversion in mid process because they didn't realize it would take four hours (because they have SOOO MANY mailboxes). Generally this results in a 1/2 converted disaster.

In short, after you start it, don't kill it midway though.

[cyanide]

Ahhh, maybe that's what I was reading.

thanks for that, Nick

[ebizindia]

I converted my server to maildir format and all hell broke loose. People are complaining about lost mails, not being able to access the POP mails where as Horde is working Ok etc.

I ran convert2maildir again and again, everytime it showed me an option to convert the rest of the accounts and I went ahead. finding that it will never finish, I gave up and wanted to revert back to mbox format, thinking that I may not be ready for prime time yet.

Now I find that we have lost all the mails in all the accounts. Maildir to mbox format transfer does not recover the mails.

Please help - what is the way out? I need to get the emails in the various directories (cur, new etc) back to the regular mailbox. Can this be done for all or at least for some domains?

One more question: There is an option to restore mails in convert2maildir (I had backed upthe mails before the conversion). Can I restore this backup for a few domains and not the full server?

Thanks in advance

[judosensei]

Is it recommended? (migrating from mbox to maildir format)

Where can I learn more about the reasons to do it?

[Cristian99]

i don't like convert from MBOX to maildir for these problems

1) with maildir, customer will have 1/2 space free (mbox= 10 mb maildir=20 Mb)
2) into webmail customer will have a lot of file and not simply a single page with email
3) cutomer will have a lot of dir and subdir

[erick_paper]

Sorry for the dense question but why do people migrate from mbox to maildir formats? What're the pros and cons? I did search (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir) and it's not a very non-technical introduction. For my laymen ears, it would be good to hear adjectives such as faster, better, more secure, less troublesome, less spammable...etc etc. Not just that it's technically superb. Thanks for any thoughts!

[cPanelDavidG]

Sorry for the dense question but why do people migrate from mbox to maildir formats? What're the pros and cons? I did search (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir) and it's not a very non-technical introduction. For my laymen ears, it would be good to hear adjectives such as faster, better, more secure, less troublesome, less spammable...etc etc. Not just that it's technically superb. Thanks for any thoughts!

Well for starters, mbox will be phased out by cPanel 12. Better to bite the bullet now and just convert. I know that in itself is a weak reason, so here's a strong reason: maildir is much faster and less troublesome than mbox!

Downsides to converting though include no longer being able to use mail clients that rely on mbox format (such as Pine on shell or NeoMail/OpenWebmail for Webmail). However, if neither of these affect you, by all means please convert to maildir .