Relation of filesystem to Cyrus mailbox structure

[Joseph Brennan]

Jorey Bump <list at joreybump.com> wrote:

> This is one area migration tools failed me, as well. None of them were
> able to automatically create the mailbox that corresponds to the
> *directory* that held mbox files, even via IMAP. They were able to
> preserve the structure, however.


But analyzing the old file structure is not difficult to script.
"find" gives a nice list.  "if (-z $file || -d $file)", just create
a Cyrus mailbox but skip the message moving tool.

Detail will vary depending how the old mail was structured.  We had
to grab /var/spool/mail/user, ~user/mbox, and ~user/mail/*  which
might be common in U Wash for example.  It might have been cool to
test the first five characters in ~user/* for "From " to catch
stray files not in the mail directory.

You're right, it's amazing how many users have only inbox and
sent and trash folders (of varying names).

Joseph Brennan
Lead Email Systems Engineer
Columbia University Information Technology