Re: mbox files - can they be "compacted"?

[Russell Miller <duskglow@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Apr 13, 2014, at 10:25 PM, Keith Keller <kkeller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> In the context of the OP, when mutt tries to deal with a message (e.g.,
> deleting, moving to a folder), it can be boatloads faster, since
> handling the message works on a small file which contains just that
> message.  Deleting a message from an mbox mailbox, for example, requires
> rewriting the entire changed mbox file to disk (minus the deleted message).
> Deleting a message from a Maildir mailbox is just removing one file from
> a directory.

HOWEVER.  When a directory grows too large, the OS can take a long time to seek through the directory, which can cause its own set of problems.  And this makes cleaning out a maildir directory selectively a real pain.  Maildir really could do with a hashing mechanism.

--Russell
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