Maximm messages in folder

[sjoram]

I encountered an issue recently with a mailbox where most recent email was missing and new items would appear for a short period before disappearing again.

When I checked the account directory in the server folder structure, the missing messages were present.
It then came to my attention that the folder was displaying exactly 50,000 messages.

I moved some messages to a different folder and the missing items reappeared shortly thereafter.

Is this a known/expected limitation?

[Code Crafters]

There is no limit within Ability Mail Server for this. Ability Mail Server does have a Max Account Size but this setting would prevent emails being delivered into the account at all and reject them at SMTP level so it's not that.

It may be a limit in your email client. We recommend having no more than 10,000 emails (ideally 1000) in any folder to keep IMAP4 operating faster without getting bogged down synchronising email headers. We advise using an Archive folder for old emails (if not several folders) to keep your Inbox fast.

[sjoram]

Thanks - as you can tell, I got lazy with archiving!

I'm generally using Thuderbird on desktop/laptop clients and Samsung email client on Android.

I think it might have something to do with Thunderbird, but the messages also disappeared out of the Samsung mail app at the same time.

I removed the account from Thunderbird on one device as well as moving some items to another folder at the same time, so I'm not sure which of the two (or both) actually cured it.

Just wanted to check it wasn't a limit specific to AMS - on which note, I try to use webmail for bulk moves to avoid the IMAP copy/delete scenario where the mail ends up getting duplicated into deleted folder. I seem to recall in an older version it was possible to bulk move mail from a folder management view somewhere, but I could be imagining it. A bit tedious to work through moving items a page at a time in webmail when I'm dealing with that volume of mail... Any better way already available or anything you can consider building in?

[Code Crafters]

I double checked the code in AMS. There is indeed a limit of 50,000 emails per folder loaded into memory from file which was probably defined over 20 years ago based on RAM limits back then. We'll increase this to 100,000 or maybe higher in the next update as it's a 1 minute job to do.

As for the bulk moving tool for WebMail, an easy option to implement would be to move all emails from a folder to another with a right click option "Move all". There are similar options now to "Mark all as read" or "Empty folder" which deletes all emails in the folder. Would this be sufficient for what you're trying to do?

[sjoram]

Sounds good on both counts, thanks.

That and DKIM now being available is another excuse to get around to an upgrade!

[Code Crafters]

No problem. We'll get both of these done in the next update.