From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: W. Greenhouse Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: using movemail directly in .emacs Date: Sun, 04 May 2014 06:13:49 +0000 Message-ID: <87wqe2yste.fsf@motoko.kusanagi> References: <5365af95$0$17080$c3e8da3$dd9697d2@news.astraweb.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1399184087 8303 80.91.229.3 (4 May 2014 06:14:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 4 May 2014 06:14:47 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Sun May 04 08:14:40 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Wgph8-0000jh-B3 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 04 May 2014 08:14:38 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:52321 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Wgph7-000895-N2 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 04 May 2014 02:14:37 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:44434) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Wgpgp-00087u-Oh for help-gnu-emacs-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org; Sun, 04 May 2014 02:14:27 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Wgpgi-0004no-Aj for help-gnu-emacs-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org; Sun, 04 May 2014 02:14:19 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:53889) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Wgpgi-0004nJ-3c for help-gnu-emacs-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org; Sun, 04 May 2014 02:14:12 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Wgpge-000569-Tx for help-gnu-emacs-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org; Sun, 04 May 2014 08:14:08 +0200 Original-Received: from bolobolo1.torservers.net ([96.47.226.20]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 04 May 2014 08:14:08 +0200 Original-Received: from wgreenhouse by bolobolo1.torservers.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 04 May 2014 08:14:08 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 45 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet-dbVV3NMTNubNLxjTenLetw@public.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: bolobolo1.torservers.net X-Archive: encrypt User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:xtRJi6xRmaKZQcMZj3GI0EhaBek= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:97555 Archived-At: Hello Hikaru, Hikaru Ichijyo writes: > Is any of this impossible or misguided? I'd just strongly prefer my > mailbox in the system spool area where most UNIX tools expect it to be. This sounds vaguely possible but probably misguided. If the goal is simply to leave mail sitting at the spool, a simpler place to start is (setq rmail-preserve-inbox t) which will prevent Movemail from emptying the spool as it delivers to rmail. I would not think it wise to copy back the RMAIL file to your system mail spool, because rmail adds its own headers to track flagged/read/replied/forwarded state and user-generated labels. Ideally, other mbox-reading clients will just ignore these additional headers, but rmail is mutating the messages it stores, not just moving or deleting them, so some potential for problems exists. As an alternative to flinging an mbox back and forth, you may be able to have your system MTA deliver your mail directly to your home directory in the more modern, non-blocking Maildir format, which several clients can read and edit simultaneously even as mail is being delivered. For example, at sites where Procmail controls local delivery from the MTA, you can have a one-line ~/.procmailrc like DEFAULT=Maildir/ to trigger delivery of all new mail to ~/Maildir/, as a mailbox name ending in / is interpreted by procmail as a Maildir instead. With Maildir you could use Mutt, KMail, Emacs's Gnus, and many others to operate on the same mail store simultaneously, if you wanted. Alpine requires a patch to support Maildir, and many other older clients such as BSD mailx do not support it at all, but it is the emerging standard over the past 10-15 years for UNIX mailclients that operate on a local store, as well as for mail indexing programs and IMAP servers. And message metadata such as flagged/read status is stored in the message filenames themselves, and so is interoperable between clients. -- Best, WGG Replies to list only, please.