Re: [PATCH] Add checks for new and tmp directories to mx_is_maildir()

"Kevin J. McCarthy" <[email protected]> Wed, 4 Feb 2026 21:15:47 +0800

Newsgroups	gmane.mail.mutt.devel
Message-ID	<aYNGg7GVQvQvzSkw@qinghai>

On Wed, Feb 04, 2026 at 10:30:52AM +0000, Crystal Kolipe wrote:
>This could plausibly break things for anyone who has written one or more old
>maildir directories to a read-only medium, and to save space has removed the
>empty 'new' and 'tmp' directories.
>
>On the other hand, implementing this change would discourange users from doing
>the same thing going forward, so overall I think it's the correct approach.
>
>Would it make sense to drop the check for 'new' and 'tmp' IFF 'cur' can only
>be opened read-only?
>
>Admittedly, anybody who removes 'tmp' and 'new' has already created a
>non-standard directory structure that other programs would not be guaranteed
>to recognise.  But that doesn't mean that somebody out there hasn't done it.
>
>Maybe have the 'missing new and tmp, but on a read-only medium' case throw a
>warning, and see if anybody ever mentions seeing the warning.  If not, remove
>the workaround after a couple of years.

Thanks Crystal.  I appreciate your thinking through possible problems!

However, I don't think that potential case is a big enough issue to add 
the extra code, or delay fixing by a couple years (with a warning).  :-)

I'll add an entry to the UPDATING file to let people know about the 
change, but after hearing others got confused by the same weird behavior 
I'd rather just fix it now.

-- 
Kevin J. McCarthy
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