[MlMt] discussion topic: IMAP or smart mailbox?

[Bill Cole]

On 14 Jun 2018, at 16:25 (-0400), Peter Borsella wrote:

> Hello, All,
>
> I currently have hundreds of IMAP folders.  Now that I have MailMate 
> I’m wondering, is it better to create IMAP folders, or, better to 
> create smart mailboxes every time I need a new collection of emails?

It depends... on so many different variables that it isn't possible to 
give a simple answer.

Do you use multiple devices? Are more than one of them Macs running MM? 
Are you using an older Mac with limited memory and/or traditional 
'spinning rust' storage? How well does your IMAP server handle giant 
mailboxes? Do you have any sort of server-side facility for delivering 
mail to mailboxes other than INBOX (i.e. Sieve or procmail?)

The downside of using only Smart Mailboxes is that it means the physical 
storage of messages on both the server and your Mac (in MM's mirror of 
the account's mailbox tree) is in one big bucket. On a server that may 
or may not be efficient. On the Mac it is not, because that bucket is a 
directory full of many files (one per message) and MacOS is not good at 
dealing with such directories. It's not so terrible if your home 
directory is on APFS, but for most people that's not the case. This may 
be a non-issue on a modern Mac with ample RAM and SSD storage using 
APFS, but even then you are left with a single bucket of mail 
server-side, which may be inefficient on the server (where it may be 
another file-per-message store on a 90's filesystem) and may not work 
well with other clients on other devices.

I personally use a hybrid model, but that's because I have 2 Macs and a 
phone accessing my primary mail account, which resides on a server I own 
and manage and which has been evolved organically for 20+ years.

-- 
Bill Cole
bill at scconsult.com or billcole at apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Currently Seeking Steadier Work: https://linkedin.com/in/billcole