I'm running:
KDE 4.7.4
Fedora 16 x86_64

I'm still struggling with kmail2 after being used to handle all my mail with kmail1.
I did not use the automatic migration tool to migrate my e-mail to kmail2 because it's still not working properly. Instead, I followed the suggestion in:
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/OneiricOcelot/ ... ntu/Kmail2
and did: File -> Import Messages, choosing "Import KMail Maildirs and Folder Structure" on KMailCVT. It imported almost all folders contained in ~/Mail, except for the very large ones, for which an error message ensued. I'm still working on that.

KMailCVT created a new folder named KMail-Import, under Local Folders, which contains the imported folders from ~/Mail.

I would like to keep on using the ~/Mail directory to store ALL my e-mail content: received, sent, trash, etc, in maildir format. However, it's still not clear to me where and how the messages in KMail-Import are stored. According to my tests, these folders are stored in obscure akonadi binary files. This is not good for me. I'd like to keep them in maildir format.

Moreover, the newly sent and trashed messages are stored in the default local folders in ~/.local/share/.local-mail.directory.

This is not what I want. I want to keep storing everything in the ~/Mail folders in maildir format, so that I can easily synch the content with my external hd.

Therefore, I have 2 questions for you experts:

1. How are the Imported folders stored by KmailCVT, and, more importantly,
2. How to configure kmail2 to store everything once again into ~/Mail, in maildir format.

Before someone suggest it, thanks, but I don't want to use or set up an imap server. I don't thing the learning curve and extra demand on resources are the best solution for me.

Ok, first things first - take a backup of all folders involved. Then rename your ~/Mail/ folder to something else such as ~/kmail1-mail/.

Next, open KMail > Settings > Configure KMail > Accounts > Receiving. Select "Local Folders" and Modify it.

You will see a path such as /home/<username>/.local/share/local-mail there. Replace this with /home/<username>/Mail/mymail/. If needed, create the /home/<username>/Mail/ folder before hand.

The reason for the /mymail is that KMail 2 by default treats the folder given as a standard MBox - so some of your Mail would escape from the folder, and end up as /home/<username>/.Mail.directory/

By adding /mymail you ensure that all of your Email is contained in ~/Mail as desired.

Once this is done, KMail may possibly relocate your email from ~/.local/share/local-mail - or it may not. In any case, you should either re-import your Mail - or exit KMail and quit Akonadi then move your mail from ~/.local/share/local-mail (including the hidden .local-mail.directory folder) to ~/Mail/

Ok, bcooksley.
The last days I've been testing your suggestions in my spare time and I've come up with a solution that seems to work.
I simply chose my ~/Mail directory as "Local Folders" in
KMail > Settings > Configure KMail > Accounts > Receiving
I also had to rename my old inbox, trash and sent mail folders as something else and then move the messages to the newly created folders.
After I did that, I verified that I can now synch my messages between my desktop (running kmail2) and my laptop (still with kmail1), using my external hd, as I was doing so far.

Summing up, I'm satisfied with the solution you provided, because it allowed me to keep kmail as my mail client with the minimum of tinkering.

The only odd thing that still remains is that when I synch the Mail directory in the desktop after receiving new messages in the laptop, the app takes some time to really enable access to the messages list. Looking up the read/write operations on the hd with iotop, I noticed that a series of mysqld processes are fired up. It seems that the database has to refresh the registered files before it allows kmail to really operate. I'm going to follow this behaviour in some other systems in the following weeks and then report back if it repeats.

Once again, thanks for the tips.

If you are using Maildir, then this may be relevant, as some performance improvements are currently being reviewed by the developers.

bcooksley wrote:If you are using Maildir, then this may be relevant, as some performance improvements are currently being reviewed by the developers.

If you want me to send some log files, I'd be happy to help. Just tell me what to do.

Log files are not needed in this case - the developers have performed some benchmarks and have found some spots where Akonadi's handling of Maildir can be optimised.