[Users] maildir plugin does not compile with claws 4.0.0

[Christian Weiske]

Hello Paul,


> It was several years ago that the maildir plugin was dropped and no 
> longer
> developed.

Ricardo Mones kept it alive (last commit was in 2020) so that it can be 
compiled and used with the latest claws mail version.


> I imagine that there must be a way for you to continue using Claws Mail
> without maildir. What appears to be tying you to it?

When surveying mail storage formats, Maildir was the one that seemed 
best suited for my mail archive:

1. Every mail has its own file, so when a mail file gets corrupted, only 
that single mail file is corrupt. If you a big mbox file (or other mail 
format database file) gets corrupted, then the whole archive is broken 
(until recovery is made).

2. Backing up mails in maildir is also easier, because only the new mail 
files need to be transferred. When a big mail folder file needs to be 
synced, most backup tools need to sync all of the data again.

After the maildir plugin was removed from claws, I used dovecot as local 
imap server (serving the maildir archive) and used claws to access it.
Unfortunately, offline mode also affects this, and I manually have to 
enable networking when I'm offline in the train to work with my mails.
Using the maildir plugin solved that problem for me.

Btw, I use getmail to fetch mails from my imap server to my laptop and 
have dozens of filters. Getmail also works fine with Maildir.


Regards,
Christian Weiske