Re: read mail in mbox files

[ernest]

Thanks for the comments.

On 18 Gen, 14:35, pmli...@free.fr (Peter Münster) wrote:
> ernest <nfdi...@gmail.com> writes:
> > This is my setup: I use fetchmail to get mail from
> > different POP/IMAP servers, then split the incoming
> > mail with procmail into different mbox files in ~/Mail.
> > What I'd like is gnus to work directly on these mbox
> > files. Is this possible?
>
> Perhaps yes. But it's not recommended. Gnus does not use any locking like
> sendmail or procmail, so whenever new mail arrives at the same time as
> Gnus is working on the mbox, you'll get problems.
>
> > What backend do I need?
> > I'd say I don't even want a backend, because I don't
> > want to copy mail anywhere!
>
> You can use the mbox backend and tell procmail to save all incoming
> messages in ~/.mail/*.spool. Then you set
>
> (setq mail-sources '((file) (directory :path "~/.mail"))
>
> and you'll get mbox files in ~/Mail for every spool file in ~/.mail
> Just be sure, that only Gnus works on the files in ~/Mail.

If I understand correctly, this will copy the "spool" files in ~/.mail
to ~/Mail, and leave everything in ~/.mail unchanged. This is not
exactly what I wanted though.

The idea is that mbox being an open format one would say it
should be possible to use the same mailboxes with different MUAs,
for instance mutt and gnus, at the same time (maybe not
simultaneously, ok, but you get the idea). In theory it should be
easy, but in practice it is not.

Cheers.
Ernest