# Mbox or maildir delivery format.



## Alain De Vos (Apr 28, 2021)

Should I use mbox because many clients don't know maildir or have obscure settings to enable it ?
Or should I use maildir because it is more safe, you can't lose all mail by accident ?


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## zirias@ (Apr 28, 2021)

The main issue with mbox is that it doesn't scale well with large mailboxes.

IMVHO, avoid clients accessing the mail spool directly and use IMAP instead, then the on-disk format doesn't matter.


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## mtu (Apr 28, 2021)

These days, I don't see any good arguments in favor of mbox. You'd have to find some _really_ obscure or outdated client that doesn't support maildir at all.

mbox can break in all sorts of ways that maildir can't. Heck, it's the only technical reason anyone can ever think of for having atime enabled on filesystems anymore.

maildir is the sane choice


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