Behind-the-scenes POP and IMAP mail upgrades

Over the next month or so, we’ll be upgrading the POP and IMAP software we use for e-mail mailboxes. We don’t expect customers to notice any change (except possibly improved speed) or experience any service interruption at all; we’re mentioning it just for completeness.

The change we’re making is replacing the Courier POP/IMAP software with the more modern and efficient Dovecot POP/IMAP software.

Dovecot has a number of advantages, particularly in terms of speed. For example, sorting tens of thousands messages by subject or sender, or doing searches through thousands of messages, is much faster with Dovecot.

We’ve tested Dovecot extensively. It’s been running in parallel with Courier on our servers for some time, and we’ve been using only Dovecot to handle all our own mail for several weeks. Because we’re running both pieces of software during the changeover, we can gradually and carefully switch individual accounts without any downtime, instead of trying to change every mailbox at once.

(It takes about two seconds to convert each mailbox, but we try to do it when you’re not logged in. In the unlikely event that you do happen to login while the conversion is happening, it just takes a couple of seconds to respond; there’s no error.)

Again, the change should be completely invisible to customers. As always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.