About Zimbra Email Client

Get detailed information about Zimbra and different types of Zimbra email client

Learn What is Zimbra?

File Storage ZDB
Category Data File, Email Client
Organization Zimbra Inc
MIME Type application/octet-stream

Zimbra is a free as well as open source desktop-based mail application that is developed by Zimbra Inc. It was released in year 2005. In addition to this, it also has a commercially supported edition, which has closed-source components. It is well suited with both POP and MAPI supporting email clients like Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail, MS Exchange, etc.

Mainly Zimbra is a collaboration suite, i.e. ZCS is a collaborative software suite, which includes:

  • Zimbra desktop: It is a fully featured free desktop email client. However, its development is discontinued under VMware stewardship in 2013 but it was started again in February 2014.
  • Zimbra Server: ZCS Server utilizes various open source projects. It releases SOAP application interface of programming for all its functionalities. It is IMAP and POP3 server that runs on many Linux distributions. However, the OSX server support was no more continued after version ZCS 7.0.
  • Zimbra Web Client: Zimbra Web client is a fully featured collaboration suite, which supports mail, calendars, groups, document sharing by using Ajax web interface. It allows tool tips, drag-drop items, and various menus in UI. It also includes various advance searching options, date relations, online document authoring.

Volumes of Mailbox Server

There are numerous of volumes for mailbox server:

  1. Message Store: All the messages of mailbox are saved at the location opt/zimbra/store.
  2. Data Store: The data saved is in the manner of SQL database and is saved in database files of MySQL. The storage location of data store is opt/zimbra/db.
  3. Index Store: The index files have its place to Zimbra server is saved at location opt/zimbra/index.
  4. Backup Store: The Zimbra server saves its complete and incremental backup at location of opt/zimbra/log.
  5. Log Files: All the Zimbra Server components have a log file related with it. They are kept at the location opt/zimbra/log.

Default Database Format

The database of Zimbra server mailbox is saved in .msg file. As shown above, the default location of MSG files is opt/zimbra/store. For every mailbox message, MSG file is made in Zimbra server. This is alike to Outlook, where for each single message EML file is created.

However, data file is stored with ZDB file extension in Zimbra for the data storage. The default location of the zimbra ZDB file differs based on Windows editions being used.

Not even this, one can even extract the data files from Zimbra easily. The data files that are extracted from Zimbra are saved with file extension TGZ. All the data stored in TGZ is in form of compressed form.

Common Errors of ZDB

  • Incorrect Application Version: Even if there is an accurate application installed on system for opening ZDB file, the unavailability of it in the latest edition might effect in failure to utilize the file.
  • Incorrect File Association: The association of the file may fail effective recognition. There is a high possibility that an application may fail to utilize the file due to mismatch or faulty settings.
  • Corruption in File: Being a locally saved file ZDB is easily vulnerable to corruption. Thus, similar error can seem in case of ZDB file corruption resulting in failure to right to use it.