Colons in data filenames
I've found that some filenames in Evolution's data contain a colon. For example, $HOME/.local/share/evolution/mail/local/(some imap folder)/cur contains files named like "1598387499.25510_0.COMPUTER_NAME:2,ST". Similarly, $HOME/.config/evolution/mail/folders contains files named like "et-expanded-folder:__local_Inbox".
The problem: colons are an invalid character on NTFS filesystems, and although Evolution is obviously a Linux mail client, there are a number of scenarios where this causes problems. For example:
- If you have an external USB hard drive that's shared between Windows & Linux, it's common to use NTFS - but because of the colons, you cannot copy/backup Evolution data to it.
- If you have a backup server (i.e. NAS) running a Windows OS, you will not be able to backup your files to it (& therefore cannot backup your home directory)
- On a dual boot machine, a common layout is to have an NTFS partition shared between both OSs. This is my scenario: to keep all of my important data centralized, I use symlinks to point particular subfolders in C:\Users\username (Win) & $HOME (Linux) to one "AppData" folder on a shared partition. This has worked for every application I use on both Windows & Linux, and allows everything to be kept in one place. Evolution is the only exception, just because its filenames have colons, and thus it cannot be stored on NTFS.
If at all possible, it would be great to use an alternative character that could be compatible with both filesystems, which would allow more flexibility for backups, etc :)
Edited by anctora