Mail archive indexing [was: [ILUG] Sync-ing kmail on desktop and laptop]

[Brian Foster]

  | From: Paolo Marchiori <paolo at marchiori.net>
  | Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 18:48:06 +0200
  |[ ... ]
  | By the way, I have all my archives since 1998 and I would like
  | to index them in a way that access to them through mutt would
  | not result in being a PITA.
  | Yes, I tried switching to a "more modern" (read: with GUI)
  | mailreader but I'm so used to mutt [ ... ] that switching
  | resulted exactly in the PITA I'm trying to avoid.

 except that I don't think it meets one of yer key
 requirements (I've no idea if this will work with
 mutt(1) or not?), one possibly may be to go backwards
 in time, rather than forward:  MH (actually, these
 days, “nmh”).

 massive collections of e-mail, and/or large daily
 amounts of e-mail, is one of the places where MH
 really shines.  with one notable exception (but
 there are some hacks), you can index yer e-mail any
 which way you want, nor is there any limit to how
 many different indices a single message can be
 simultaneously included in.  (in MH terms, an index
 is a “folder”, which corresponds exactly to a *ix
 directory.  you can also use so-called “sequences”
 inside a folder, but sequences are rather limited.)

 the notable exception is one thing I understand
 `mutt' is good at:  threaded conversations.  there
 is no support per se for threading in MH (indeed,
 you have to manually modify the nominally installed
 MH configuration so that it _generates_ the correct
 threading data when you send e-mail), albeit there
 are some hacks floating around to deal with the
 issue.  (I've no idea how well any of said hacks
 work since I'm sufficiently accustomed to not having
 threads that I've never bothered trying any hacks.)

 ( and for people who like GUIs, there are at least two
  which work with MH: `exmh' and `sylpheed(-claws)';
  `exmh' has the really nice feature it interfaces with
  glimpse(1), providing überpowerful searching. )

cheers!
	-blf-
-- 
Experienced (>25 yrs) kernel/software Eng: | Brian Foster   Montpellier,
 • Unix, embedded, &tc;  • Linux;  • doc;  | blf at utvinternet.ie   FRANCE
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