Mbox or maildir? How can I tell what an account uses?
I oppologize for a long thread-starter.
I've searched through all account settings for several TBird accounts and have not found a way to identify which accounts are mdir and which are maildir. I mostly have maildir accounts (or maybe only maildir accounts... not sure), having converted from mbox to maildir several years ago, but there was one empty maildir account that I used as a lilypad during the conversion, and that I could not delete when it was no longer needed. The presence of that undeletable lilypad maildir account didn't seem to affect anything, so I have ignored it.
But I created a new account recently and I want to confirm it's maildir because I am having problems with that new account. Also, since I created the new account, I can't fetch POP3 mail globally -- I have to fetch each account's new mail individutally.
This issue may be complicated by the fact that TBird is running in a Linux VM with my TBird profile in a Host-Guest shared directory (so that it's accessable by the Windows Host) -- to be clear, the profile resides in the Windows Host's NTFS which is then shared with the Linux Guest. But I've been running with a that hosted TBird profile for a couple of years, so I don't think it's relevant to this issue.
As a first step. before I launch into major surgery, I need to verify that the new, troublesome account is, indeed, a maildir. But I haven't been able to discover how to identify maildir accounts.
Does anyone have any ideas? All help seriously considered, and appreciated!
Warm Regards, Mark.
All Replies (6)
I do not think there is a user interface "prompt" but a look in the profile using file manager will show either an MSF file with a single monolithic MBOX file (No file extension) or a folder with the name of the MSF file containing a cur and a TMP folder (I think both appear in all cases.) The cur folder containing a host of EML files (again no file extension) representing one file per email.
Thank you, Matt. I knew about the maildir file structure, but there's problems...
The real answer is buried in an opaque SQL database. I was hoping that TBird made that database more transparent by explicitly showing "mbox" vs "maildir" ...apparently not, though.
In my case, I have some (one or more) left-side folders that can't be repaired using the "Repair" facility of the Folder Properties dialog and that can't be deleted. I need to know what TBird "thinks" they are, not what they actually are.
I can't read the SQL, and even if I could, I'm sure the data labels would be so cryptic that I wouldn't know what I was accessing.
Go to Tools|Options|Advanced|General→Config Editor.
Type maildir into the search box and it will list all the accounts where maildir is used. Type berkeley and it'll show you the mbox accounts.
However, that's a bit opaque; you'll need to then decipher the server numbers to work out which account each server matches up with.
In my account settings, under Server Settings I see this:
Message store type: file per message (maildir)
so you can check each account separately.
I too use maildir. The one account that proved a challenge to convert was Local Folders. ISTR I set maildir as the default account storage scheme, then closed Thunderbird and deleted Local Folders from the profile. On starting Thunderbird again, it re-created Local Folders, but this time using maildir mode. Of course this is only feasible if you either have nothing in Local Folders that you wish to keep, or else are prepared to export everything to eml format then re-import your eml file after the conversion.
Modified by Zenos
Thanks, Zenos! Great info. Very useful.
Hmmm... Things did not work out as expected. It appears my TBird (in Linux) insists on 'berkeley' for 'Local Folders'.
Confirm: using maildir
In menu: "Edit" > "Preferences" (opens "Thunderbird Preferences" dialog). In "Thunderbird Preferences" dialog, "Advanced" on ribbon, "General" tab, "Advanced Configuration" section, "Message Store Type for new accounts: [_File_per_message_(maildir)_]
Delete 'Local Folders'
Closed TBird. Deleted '/media/sf_D/email/0ysydkep.default/Mail/Local Folders/'.
Recreate 'Local Folders', but new is 'berkeley'.
Launched TBird. about:config, search for 'berkeley', shows: Name: mail.server.server1.storeContractID Status: user_set Type: string Value: @mozilla.org/msgstore/berkeleystore;1
Note that 'server1' == 'Local Folders'.
Oh, well. I don't use 'Local Folders' and have never been able to figure out what it is for.
Somehow. my Local Folders says it's maildir.
A) I wasn't convinced that I'd even tried to get it thus on this particular PC, and B) clearly I haven't remembered correctly how I got it this way. :-(
Local Folders? I use it for Saved Searches, Sent folders for newsgroups stuff, and things in IMAP-connected accounts that I want stored locally i.e. offline.
Modified by Zenos
I had missed that in server settings Zenos.
Have you tried TB60 beta. It has a mbox to maildir converter option that might be interesting.