email client for only reading email from mbox

email client for only reading email from mbox

[right.ho]

Dear experts,
   I have tried multiple emacs email clients (gnus, wanderlust and a bit of mew). Problem is that my company's IMAP server is very buggy - gmail imap works using similar configuration in gnus and wanderlust but my company's IMAP gives weird problems - hanging, showing a very small subset of mails. I never got around to setting up mew properly.

Thunderbird works tolerably - and I only need emacs to read mail. Not to fetch from IMAP, not to compose or send - just read and link from org-mode.

This gives me the idea that I should probably read thunderbird's mbox mail storage from emacs. But the "simple" configuration guides for all emacs email clients talk about the most popular use case - which is not mine. I am at my wits' end and turn to your expertise.

Setting up another local IMAP server has the problem that I have 10 GB email - millions in number. The machine I use at work is already not up to performing its usual work - I am not sure if I can burden it with IMAP server. Secondly I need to run on windows - dovecot sayis it is for UNIX.

Can one of you provide pointers to this usage? Summary :

I do NOT need :
1. fetching email, using IMAP or anything else.
2. sending email
3. filtering email
4. not particular on which emacs client to use, if it is good

Constraints I have :
1. Tons of email
2. Windows OS
3. Thunderbird's mbox files to be read-only
4. Reading mail and linking to mail from org-mode

thanks a lot
Bingo

Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 08:44:23 -0800 (PST)
> From: right.ho@gmail.com
> 
> Can one of you provide pointers to this usage? Summary :
> 
> I do NOT need :
> 1. fetching email, using IMAP or anything else.
> 2. sending email
> 3. filtering email
> 4. not particular on which emacs client to use, if it is good
> 
> Constraints I have :
> 1. Tons of email
> 2. Windows OS
> 3. Thunderbird's mbox files to be read-only
> 4. Reading mail and linking to mail from org-mode

Did you try Rmail?  "C-u M-x rmail RET mbox-file RET" will allow you
to read mail from the named "mbox-file" (which stands for the file
name where you have that mbox).

Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[Rainer M Krug]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1430 bytes --]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 08:44:23 -0800 (PST)
>> From: right.ho@gmail.com
>> 
>> Can one of you provide pointers to this usage? Summary :
>> 
>> I do NOT need :
>> 1. fetching email, using IMAP or anything else.
>> 2. sending email
>> 3. filtering email
>> 4. not particular on which emacs client to use, if it is good
>> 
>> Constraints I have :
>> 1. Tons of email
>> 2. Windows OS
>> 3. Thunderbird's mbox files to be read-only
>> 4. Reading mail and linking to mail from org-mode
>
> Did you try Rmail?  "C-u M-x rmail RET mbox-file RET" will allow you
> to read mail from the named "mbox-file" (which stands for the file
> name where you have that mbox).

another oprion is to use e.g. offlineimap [1]to get your email and read it
with e.g. gnus?

From their webpage:

,----
| OfflineImap synchronizes emails between two repositories, so that you
| can read the same mailbox from multiple computers. It supports IMAP as
| REMOTE repository and Maildir/IMAP as LOCAL repository. See below for a
| full list of features.
`----

I do this for three accounts (gmail, university exchange
server, iCloud mail account) and it works perfectly.

There are other imap sync programs as well which you could use.

Cheers,

Rainer

>
>


Footnotes: 
[1]  http://offlineimap.org

-- 
Rainer M. Krug
email: Rainer<at>krugs<dot>de
PGP: 0x0F52F982

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Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[Igor Sosa Mayor]

Rainer M Krug <Rainer@krugs.de> writes:

> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> another oprion is to use e.g. offlineimap [1]to get your email and read it
> with e.g. gnus?
[...]
> I do this for three accounts (gmail, university exchange
> server, iCloud mail account) and it works perfectly.

could you maybe share your config? are you using maildir? 

-- 
:: Igor Sosa Mayor     :: joseleopoldo1792@gmail.com ::
:: GnuPG: 0x1C1E2890   :: http://www.gnupg.org/      ::
:: jabberid: rogorido  ::                            ::

Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[right.ho]

On Friday, November 28, 2014 2:23:03 PM UTC+5:30, Rainer M Krug wrote:

> I do this for three accounts (gmail, university exchange
> server, iCloud mail account) and it works perfectly.
> 
> There are other imap sync programs as well which you could use.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Rainer
> 
> >
> >
> 
> 
> Footnotes: 
> [1]  http://offlineimap.org
> 
> -- 
> Rainer M. Krug
> email: Rainer<at>krugs<dot>de
> PGP: 0x0F52F982

Thanks Rainer. Could you post your gnus settings? I am failing to configure it to NOT download mail, just read it from a file locally. I hope to make Thunderbird my "offlineimap" - possibly I can automate some processing on Thunderbird's data to make it compatible with gnus / mh-e / rmail etc.

Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[right.ho]

On Thursday, November 27, 2014 11:29:42 PM UTC+5:30, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 08:44:23 -0800 (PST)
> > From:Bingo
> > 
> > Can one of you provide pointers to this usage? Summary :
> > 
> > I do NOT need :
> > 1. fetching email, using IMAP or anything else.
> > 2. sending email
> > 3. filtering email
> > 4. not particular on which emacs client to use, if it is good
> > 
> > Constraints I have :
> > 1. Tons of email
> > 2. Windows OS
> > 3. Thunderbird's mbox files to be read-only
> > 4. Reading mail and linking to mail from org-mode
> 
> Did you try Rmail?  "C-u M-x rmail RET mbox-file RET" will allow you
> to read mail from the named "mbox-file" (which stands for the file
> name where you have that mbox).

It opened the 600MB file as a text file, not as a list of emails, along with ^M for each line. Did you mean this?

Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 21:01:08 -0800 (PST)
> From: right.ho@gmail.com
> 
> > Did you try Rmail?  "C-u M-x rmail RET mbox-file RET" will allow you
> > to read mail from the named "mbox-file" (which stands for the file
> > name where you have that mbox).
> 
> It opened the 600MB file as a text file, not as a list of emails, along with ^M for each line. Did you mean this?

No, of course not.  Make the file be in Unix EOL format first, I think
that's your problem.  You can do this in Emacs, like this:

  M-x find-file-literally RET file-name RET
  C-x RET f unix RET
  C-x C-s

Then kill the buffer and repeat the "C-u M-x rmail" command above.

If that doesn't work, either, perhaps your mbox is not in the mbox
format understood by Rmail (you should have error messages in that
case).

Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[Nicolas Richard]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>> From: right.ho@gmail.com
>> It opened the 600MB file as a text file, not as a list of emails, along with ^M for each line. Did you mean this?
>
> No, of course not.  Make the file be in Unix EOL format first, I think
> that's your problem.  You can do this in Emacs, like this:
>
>   M-x find-file-literally RET file-name RET
>   C-x RET f unix RET
>   C-x C-s
>
> Then kill the buffer and repeat the "C-u M-x rmail" command above.
>
> If that doesn't work, either, perhaps your mbox is not in the mbox
> format understood by Rmail (you should have error messages in that
> case).

Since there is a requirement that the file should not be modified, maybe
C-x RET c undecided-dos RET followed by C-u M-x rmail would do it (or
work on a copy, but that's less convenient if the aim is to make links
to the original file).

-- 
Nicolas Richard

Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Nicolas Richard <theonewiththeevillook@yahoo.fr>
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org, right.ho@gmail.com
> Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 10:53:32 +0100
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> >> From: right.ho@gmail.com
> >> It opened the 600MB file as a text file, not as a list of emails, along with ^M for each line. Did you mean this?
> >
> > No, of course not.  Make the file be in Unix EOL format first, I think
> > that's your problem.  You can do this in Emacs, like this:
> >
> >   M-x find-file-literally RET file-name RET
> >   C-x RET f unix RET
> >   C-x C-s
> >
> > Then kill the buffer and repeat the "C-u M-x rmail" command above.
> >
> > If that doesn't work, either, perhaps your mbox is not in the mbox
> > format understood by Rmail (you should have error messages in that
> > case).
> 
> Since there is a requirement that the file should not be modified

Can it be copied, then?

Anyway, I suspect that the original mbox file did indeed use Unix
EOLs, and the fact that this one doesn't is simply an artifact of the
program used to generate it on Windows.  Mbox files always use Unix
EOLs.

> maybe C-x RET c undecided-dos RET followed by C-u M-x rmail would do
> it

No, it won't.  Rmail requires the mbox file in Unix EOL format.

Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[right.ho]

On Friday, November 28, 2014 3:59:17 PM UTC+5:30, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > From: Nicolas Richard <>
> > Cc: , 
> > Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 10:53:32 +0100
> > 
> > Eli Zaretskii <> writes:
> > >> From: 
> > >> It opened the 600MB file as a text file, not as a list of emails, along with ^M for each line. Did you mean this?
> > >
> > > No, of course not.  Make the file be in Unix EOL format first, I think
> > > that's your problem.  You can do this in Emacs, like this:
> > >
> > >   M-x find-file-literally RET file-name RET
> > >   C-x RET f unix RET
> > >   C-x C-s
> > >
> > > Then kill the buffer and repeat the "C-u M-x rmail" command above.
> > >
> > > If that doesn't work, either, perhaps your mbox is not in the mbox
> > > format understood by Rmail (you should have error messages in that
> > > case).
> > 
> > Since there is a requirement that the file should not be modified
> 
> Can it be copied, then?
> 
> Anyway, I suspect that the original mbox file did indeed use Unix
> EOLs, and the fact that this one doesn't is simply an artifact of the
> program used to generate it on Windows.  Mbox files always use Unix
> EOLs.
> 
> > maybe C-x RET c undecided-dos RET followed by C-u M-x rmail would do
> > it
> 
> No, it won't.  Rmail requires the mbox file in Unix EOL format.

I can copy the files - hopefully run a windows equivalent of cron for this.

After I converted to UNIX EOLs, it works - but it shows exactly 255 messages in a file with about 3000 messages. Am I missing some obvious setting to see all messages?

Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 05:14:26 -0800 (PST)
> From: right.ho@gmail.com
> Injection-Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 13:14:27 +0000
> 
> After I converted to UNIX EOLs, it works - but it shows exactly 255 messages in a file with about 3000 messages. Am I missing some obvious setting to see all messages?

I'm not aware of any limitations in this matter.  E.g., I'm typing
this from an Rmail INBOX folder that currently holds 2832 messages.

What do you mean by "shows exactly 255 messages" -- shows where?  What
does the mode line show in the major mode portion?  What happens if
you say "C-u 1000 j" -- does it show the 1000th message?  What happens
if you press 'h' -- does Rmail produce a summary of only 255 messages?
Did you see any messages when you typed the original "M-x rmail"
command (you can see them in the *Messages* buffer)?

Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[right.ho]

On Friday, November 28, 2014 8:04:48 PM UTC+5:30, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 05:14:26 -0800 (PST)
> > From: Bingo
> > Injection-Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 13:14:27 +0000
> > 
> > After I converted to UNIX EOLs, it works - but it shows exactly 255 messages in a file with about 3000 messages. Am I missing some obvious setting to see all messages?
> 
> I'm not aware of any limitations in this matter.  E.g., I'm typing
> this from an Rmail INBOX folder that currently holds 2832 messages.
> 
> What do you mean by "shows exactly 255 messages" -- shows where?  What
> does the mode line show in the major mode portion?  What happens if
> you say "C-u 1000 j" -- does it show the 1000th message?  What happens
> if you press 'h' -- does Rmail produce a summary of only 255 messages?
> Did you see any messages when you typed the original "M-x rmail"
> command (you can see them in the *Messages* buffer)?


Thanks Eli. Soon after loading, last email is open in the whole buffer - status bar is saying (RMAIL 255/255).  The buffer is named same as the mbox file name that I opened.

In a separate "Messages" buffer, there is a question of the file being large (594MB), really open y/n ?  To which I had answered y. And another statement "Counting messages...done". Nothing else.

In "Summary" menu, I can click on "All" - key for this is "h", a summary of only 255 messages in a top half-window, numbered 1-255. Clicking on any of these message headers opens corresponding mail in bottom half-window. I tried searching (Summary -> By Regexp) , it searches only within those 255 messages, but I know lots of other thousands of messages match my search. From my educated guess, these are 255 latest messages in the MBOX file. 255 being a nice round number, I suspect this is deliberate.

In this top-panel summary, I do C-u 1000 j. It comes to 255th message and status bar shows "No following message". Seems like it tried to go to 1000th message but found no message after 255th.

I am using emacs 24.4.1, x86_64, downloaded prebuilt for windows from somewhere.

Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 11:29:01 -0800 (PST)
> From: right.ho@gmail.com
> 
> In a separate "Messages" buffer, there is a question of the file being large (594MB), really open y/n ?  To which I had answered y. And another statement "Counting messages...done". Nothing else.
> 
> In "Summary" menu, I can click on "All" - key for this is "h", a summary of only 255 messages in a top half-window, numbered 1-255. Clicking on any of these message headers opens corresponding mail in bottom half-window. I tried searching (Summary -> By Regexp) , it searches only within those 255 messages, but I know lots of other thousands of messages match my search. From my educated guess, these are 255 latest messages in the MBOX file. 255 being a nice round number, I suspect this is deliberate.

I use Rmail all the time, and I assure you there's no 255-message
limitation in Rmail.  Some other factor is at work here.  I suggest to
try another build of Emacs.

Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[Jason Rumney]

On Friday, 28 November 2014 18:29:17 UTC+8, Eli Zaretskii  wrote:

> Anyway, I suspect that the original mbox file did indeed use Unix
> EOLs, and the fact that this one doesn't is simply an artifact of the
> program used to generate it on Windows.  Mbox files always use Unix
> EOLs.

I can confirm that Thunderbird mail files on my Windows PC are using DOS EOLs, and rmail is unable to open them properly.  I am however able to read them using Gnus nndoc backend.

Re: email client for only reading email from mbox

[Robert Thorpe]

Jason Rumney <jasonrumney@gmail.com> writes:

> On Friday, 28 November 2014 18:29:17 UTC+8, Eli Zaretskii  wrote:
>
>> Anyway, I suspect that the original mbox file did indeed use Unix
>> EOLs, and the fact that this one doesn't is simply an artifact of the
>> program used to generate it on Windows.  Mbox files always use Unix
>> EOLs.
>
> I can confirm that Thunderbird mail files on my Windows PC are using
> DOS EOLs, and rmail is unable to open them properly.  I am however
> able to read them using Gnus nndoc backend.

I've used RMAIL to read Thunderbird mail files.  I haven't bothered to
convert the end-of-line characters.  For my Thunderbird mail files it
works anyway.  I don't know why the people in this thread are having
problems, perhaps Thunderbird has changed it's format (I have 31.2).

By the way, Thunderbird doesn't strictly use DOS line-endings in it's mail
files.  Each email uses whatever line-endings it came with.  Often some
of the mails in a file will have Unix line-endings and others DOS.

I have found a big problem though, UTF-8 mails.  For some reason
Thunderbird converts all UTF-8 mails to base64 when it puts them in it's
files.  Oddly it doesn't seem to do this with any other character sets.

At some point in the future I'm going to write a script to process the
Thunderbird mail files I have into proper mbox files that can be read by
RMAIL, I haven't done that yet though.

BR,
Robert Thorpe