[ILUG] Sync-ing kmail on desktop and laptop

[Timothy Murphy]

On Wed 18 Apr 2007, Cian Davis wrote:

> > But as far as I could see, when I ran kmail (with an imap account)
> > on my laptop the email was downloaded from my desktop to the laptop,
> > which wasn't what I wanted.
> > Maybe I set up the IMAP account on kmail on my laptop incorrectly?
>
> Must have - I use Dovecot here and it keeps the mail on the server.
> You're looking for an option to sync mail rather than download it.

Do you use dovecot with kmail?

What exactly do you mean by "keeps the mail on the server"?
My email is stored on my desktop in /var/spool/mail/tim ,
and when I run kmail on the desktop this is distributed 
among folders  in ~/Mail.

Basically, what I am looking for is a system where
kmail on laptop A and laptop B see exactly the same email.
Actually, I have that by exporting ~/Mail with NFS from the desktop
to each laptop.
The trouble with this is that kmail (as far as I can see)
only looks for new mail on the local machine.

As I see it, kmail works in two phases -
first it divides email from /var/spool/mail
(where the mail is saved in mbox format)
into different folders in ~/Mail
(where it is held in maildir format).
The second phase is to offer the mail
in the different folders for reading.

What I would like, if such a thing exists,
is a simple command which would carry out the first phase
on the desktop.

Am I really misunderstanding how IMAP works, or what it does?



-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland