Comments on: CPanel MBOX to MAILDIR migration: convert2maildir

By: how to backup all email accounts - cPanel Forums

how to backup all email accounts - cPanel Forums — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:48:01 +0000

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By: AG

AG — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 08:54:33 +0000

You might also note that the conversion to maildir will break many existing procmail scripts that ran perfectly with mbox

By: - Marius -

- Marius - — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:13:30 +0000

Scot,

Thanks for you comment. I agree with your notes.

- on #2… i don’t think it is possible to keep the state of the mails read. You can explain the users like you did, or hope to have users not keeping their emails on the server and they will not even notice this.
- you are correct this is not the script fault and in fact the script is running just fine.

Thanks,
- Marius -

By: Scot Hacker

Scot Hacker — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 08:13:56 +0000

Two caveats on this script, one small one large:

1) Webmail users will need to re-subscribe to any IMAP folders they’re watching. Not a big deal.

2) POP users will end up downloading duplicate copies of all messages living on the server once the conversion is complete.

#2 (for me) was a big deal. I had a lot of pissed off users, especially since I had told them the transition would be transparent. Why did I tell them this? Because neither the forum threads at cpanel.net nor the conversion script make any mention of POP users having to download everything all over again. The problem is due to a limitation in the POP protocol and is not the script’s fault, but cPanel *really* should be warning admins to expect and warn about the implications.