Re: read mail in mbox files

[Richard Riley]

asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:

> On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:41:04 +0100, Richard wrote:
>
>> ~/Mail is a default. I am "pretty sure" (thats a euphemism meaning "I am
>> happy to remain in ignorance as it works for me") that nnml reads
>> "incoming" from the spool /var/spool and then stores them in mbox (or
>> whatever?!?) in ~/Mail.
>
> nnml does not store in mbox format:
>
> ,----[ 6.3.13.3 Mail Spool <http://gnus.org/manual/gnus_194.html#SEC194> ]
> |
> | If you use this back end, Gnus will split all incoming mail into files,
> | one file for each mail, and put the articles into the corresponding
> | directories under the directory specified by the nnml-directory
> | variable. The default value is `~/Mail/'.

So what format? Maildir? What is a "nnaml-directory"? Maybe I'm
overthinking it. But "nnml"? My comments are also reflective of the
times we see the same questions here and in #emacs : clearly it isnt at
all clear. If I could understand what it is I would love to have a stab
at explaining it better. As it is nnfolder, nnml and some others seem to
be some sort of abstract gnus only concepts. Please don't misunderstand
my stance is negative per.se - I'm just voicing the difficulties and
many others find trying to configure gnus. When you know it and
understand it then .. you understand it. But without a good gnus
knowledge its hard to even get started.

> |
> |[...]
> |
> | If you have a strict limit as to how many files you are allowed to store
> | in your account, you should not use this back end. As each mail gets its
> | own file, you might very well occupy thousands of inodes within a few
> | weeks. If this is no problem for you, and it isn't a problem for you
> | having your friendly systems administrator walking around, madly,
> | shouting "Who is eating all my inodes?! Who? Who!?!", then you should
> | know that this is probably the fastest format to use. You do not have to
> | trudge through a big mbox file just to read your new mail.
> |
> `----
>
> If the original poster wants to keep procmail splitting mail into
> ~/Mail/ then nnml definitely is not the answer (as nnml assumes that
> Gnus is the only one writing to nnml-groups).

That makes some sense.

>
>> But here we see an issue with the docs. nnml? 
>
> Suggest improvements to http://gnus.org/manual/gnus_194.html#SEC194 and
> http://gnus.org/manual/gnus_202.html#SEC202 ?

One cant improve it if one doesnt know what something is;) What is nnml?

If i was to start I think some sort of overview of Linux/*IX mail would
go a long way. e.g What IS incoming mail? It might seem obvious to some
but it really isn't to many. Is incoming mail in /var/spool? What about
if the system is configured to deliver mail locally e.g to ~/Mail? How
does that work with nnml backend?

At some point in the future I intend to wipe my mail setup and start
again from scratch starting with my Linux "system email" as I call it :
ie locally delivered from root etc. Its still not working properly for
me. When I do I hope to log the steps and provide an explanation better
suited for new adopters.


>
>> I used to use fancy splitting but cant get it working with spam-split
>> with nognus anymore. Calls for a working config haven't been successful
>> ;(
>
> I don't use IMAP, so I can't give any other examples than the ones
> already posted.

Most of the major nognus changes have been imap related.

>
>   Best regards,
>
>     Adam

-- 
☘ http://www.shamrockirishbar.com, http://splash-of-open-sauce.blogspot.com/ 
http://www.richardriley.net