Storing email in a database would be an interesting way to do things, but it sounds a bit overly complex for most mail readers out there... most of which (rightly, I think) spend the bulk of their effort focusing on the front end and actually reading the mail. Also, the word "export" seems to imply that you don't want to keep the database up-to-date with your email in real time.
I think it'd be very interesting to see an IMAP server that would manage mail folders in a database, though. That'd take a lot of stress off the folder managing complexity away from the mail reading client.
Someone else who replied mentioned that databases suck for handling free text. In my experience, they're at least as good as any other format, and they tend to have a much more established way of organising text indexes for any searching that's needed. The headers on emails can easily be separated for separate indexing and searching away from the body text, and even the body text can be indexed with real full-text indexes. (I'm not sure how well MySql supports that, but there's at least one contributed extension to PostgreSQL (tsearch2) that does full text indexing nicely.
There's at least one IMAP server that does use a database - Exchange. I don't know about you, but I don't find the results thrilling at least from an admin's perspective.
There has been repeated discussion on the Cyrus IMAPd list about mail-in-database storage, but the general consensus is that it would gain nothing over how Cyrus currently does things. Cyrus keeps its own header index and an optional body text index (searching a non-locally-cached 30,000 message mailbox in < 1 second, over dial-up = nic
That's a fair enough point. I guess the main advantage with using a database would be the ability to query your email a little more flexibly than what might be available in a mail client.
To elaborate more on what I said in the initial post, I must make it clear that:
(1) I'm talking from the point of view of a single user, not a sysadmin. (2) Email clients must be simple and snappy. (3) I have found they are not very appropriate to keep (and eventually search through) a large archive of old emails. (3) A database seems to be a good way to keep a larger archive of emails messages (including, of course) attachments. For huge archives containing many accounts there could be efficiency problems, b
"Well hello there Charlie Brown, you blockhead."
-- Lucy Van Pelt
I want a "Export to mysql" option (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps with an IMAP server (Score:2)
Storing email in a database would be an interesting way to do things, but it sounds a bit overly complex for most mail readers out there... most of which (rightly, I think) spend the bulk of their effort focusing on the front end and actually reading the mail. Also, the word "export" seems to imply that you don't want to keep the database up-to-date with your email in real time.
I think it'd be very interesting to see an IMAP server that would manage mail folders in a database, though. That'd take a lot of stress off the folder managing complexity away from the mail reading client.
Someone else who replied mentioned that databases suck for handling free text. In my experience, they're at least as good as any other format, and they tend to have a much more established way of organising text indexes for any searching that's needed. The headers on emails can easily be separated for separate indexing and searching away from the body text, and even the body text can be indexed with real full-text indexes. (I'm not sure how well MySql supports that, but there's at least one contributed extension to PostgreSQL (tsearch2) that does full text indexing nicely.
IMAPd database (Score:2)
There has been repeated discussion on the Cyrus IMAPd list about mail-in-database storage, but the general consensus is that it would gain nothing over how Cyrus currently does things. Cyrus keeps its own header index and an optional body text index (searching a non-locally-cached 30,000 message mailbox in < 1 second, over dial-up = nic
Re:IMAPd database (Score:2)
That's a fair enough point. I guess the main advantage with using a database would be the ability to query your email a little more flexibly than what might be available in a mail client.
Re:Perhaps with an IMAP server (Score:1)
(1) I'm talking from the point of view of a single user, not a sysadmin.
(2) Email clients must be simple and snappy.
(3) I have found they are not very appropriate to keep (and eventually search through) a large archive of old emails.
(3) A database seems to be a good way to keep a larger archive of emails messages (including, of course) attachments. For huge archives containing many accounts there could be efficiency problems, b