mbox or maildir ?

[pete of ebor]

Not sure if this is a new feature in Thunderbird, but I've only just noticed that you now have the option of choosing the file format in which to store your emails. I understand that mbox stores all mails within a single file and that maildir stores each mail as a seperate file, but are there any benefits or downsides to using one rather than the other ? In my gmail account I have over 6400 mails in my inbox folder and over 10,000 in the all mail folder. Is there any benefit to storing these as maildir or mbox ?

[DanRaisch]

How is that account set up (o to be set up) in Thunderbird, as POP or IMAP?

[WaltS48]

The latest I can find about maildir.

The major issues left with maildir are that of IMAP.

Thunderbird/Maildir - MozillaWiki

[pete of ebor]

My gmail account is set up as IMAP. I really just want to know whether there are any specific advantages or drawbacks to using one or other.

[wsmwk]

not a signficant advantage for the average user. given the current state of maildir, in your case your avarge message size would have to be over 300-400k to bother considering.

[DanRaisch]

My gmail account is set up as IMAP

In that case, there's also the question of whether you require/utilize off line access or simply work with the data on the server. In the latter case, the whole question of message file format may be moot for you.

[tanstaafl]

not a signficant advantage for the average user. given the current state of maildir, in your case your avarge message size would have to be over 300-400k to bother considering.

I thought the main attraction of maildir was that you that didn't have to worry about corrupt folders , didn't need to compact folders anymore, and there were no performance penalties when you have a folder larger than 4GB. I suspect maildir performance scales much better than mbox when you have 10K messages in a mail folder.

Why do you think the main advantage is more efficient storage under certain circumstances?