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User1
Asked: 2010-01-08 20:29:27 +0800 CST

maildir in Windows for IMAP

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I'm interested in accessing my IMAP accounts offline. I found that maildirs are a simple way to make it work. I found that [offlineimap] takes care of almost everything in making the IMAP->maildir sync happen. Then, I can open the account in Mutt or Wanderlust client.

One major problem, maildirs use colons in their filenames. Windows doesn't allow colons. I tried mount -f -s -b -o managed "d:/tmp/mail" "/home/of/mail" in Cygwin, but doing an echo test > /home/of/mail/test:file didn't work

I'm thinking about ext2fs, but I need an ext2 partition somewhere. Can I make a file into a partition somehow? I don't want to start modifying my hard drive's partition table. Besides, does anyone know if ext2fs will support colons in filenames?

email ext3 imap maildir

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    One major problem, maildirs use colons in their filenames.

    On Windows, a semicolon ; is often used in Maildirs. Since offlineimap is written in Python, it shouldn't be hard to make it do the same.

    Can I make a file into a partition somehow?

    There should be a program that can do that. (I know there's VFDwin for floppy disk emulation.) If not, there's a (hacky) alternative: create a passwordless TrueCrypt volume.

    I don't want to start modifying my hard drive's partition table

    gparted with ntfsprogs works really well.

    Besides, does anyone know if ext2fs will support colons in filenames?

    All Unix filesystems do. (In fact, even Windows' NTFS does.)

    But Win32 itself probably doesn't. For NTFS, it uses colons to separate the file path from the stream name (kinda like xattrs on ext3).

    (It's possible to install a POSIX subsystem in Windows NT, it is (was?) called "Microsoft Services for Unix", but I doubt it'll help you with this issue.)

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