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Several ruminations on this topic can be found on the Internet. None (that is easily found) answers the question though, especially for those not familiar with both formats in detail.
The relevant article on Mozilla wiki notes in its first paragraph: “Thunderbird's maildir implementation allows a single unique filename per email (EML). HOWEVER, note this is NOT full maildir in the sense that most people, particularly linux users or mail administrators, know as maildir.” So, presumably, Thunderbird's stock converter does not offer the proper solution.
Dovecot recommends dsync
but it is presumably developed for dovecot specifically. I want to quit using Thunderbird but I don't intend to use Dovecot right now, with its wiki mentioning some “Maildir++”. Dovecot also recommends (ibid.) mb2md.pl
with some patches of Dovecot's own. mb2md
seems to be what's recommended in general.
However, there are two implementations of mb2md
: a sh+Python script and a Perl script. The former is the original implementation, and its page says literally the following about the Perl version: “if you encounter this particular [seemingly absurdly trivial environment-related] issue with my script, give it [the Perl implementation] a try”, and nothing else. It's not clear whether those two scripts operate the same way or even support the same syntax. (Brief inspection suggests it doesn't; why use the same name then?) Python version is reportedly from 2006 which makes it more than 10 years old as of today. It also so happens that the distribution I use (Gentoo) does not seem to have mb2md
in its repository. I could install Dovecot and use its converter but this doesn't feel right.
Even though the matter might be trivial (mbox is nothing but string concatenation of eml's, right?), all the above is alarming: for a more than 10 year old format (Maildir), widely considered superior to mbox, there apparently is no standard migration mechanism. I don't want to convert blindly, only to find out later that some data was lost, as the mb2md
page warns, or that I can't add more messages to the new Maildir storage without losing consistency, as mentioned in mbsync man page (search for the phrase “native scheme is faster”).
For the record, I intend to use mbsync with the new Maildir storage. Hopefully, the answer would not depend on this.
- Will the 10 year old sh+Python
mb2md
converter work as fine with modern mboxen as it did with 2006 ones? - Thunderbird directory contains
Mail
,ImapMail
,News
andFeeds
subdirectories, which, in turn, contain other files. AreINBOX
files the only mbox files, or I might miss some others? - Should I convert each mbox file with
mb2md
separately and do I have to somehow manually connect or group them in Maildir storage? - In the past, Thunderbird offered “compacting” folders, whatever that means, and the user said yes. Does it affect the conversion process?
- What should I take into account when choosing between different
mb2md
versions? Assume, for the sake of completeness, that tags, PGP encryption and signatures in various forms were heavily used in Thunderbird.
1"Python version is reportedly from 2006 which makes it more than 10 years old as of today." - I can point to code that exists that is 30 years old and in production use. Does code expire like milk? I am pointing this out because, the age of the program shouldn't matter, unless flat out doesn't work anymore. The fact it doesn't work also woudln't have anything to do with its age, because to be honest, it likely never worked or better stated "worked well". You will have to answer most of these questions for us. – Ramhound – 2017-01-19T19:57:27.950
Script did not expire. Mail could change though. That's why I said “work with mboxen” and not “run”. – akater – 2017-01-19T22:42:45.077