Linux

48386 readers

985 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

How to keep all email locally in a useful format that can be searched across devices? (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

36 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have an account on an SMTP server. The server has a storage quota. I'd like the delete stuff from the server but keep it locally in case I need it. Just in case.

I'd like to be able to access the mail somehow on other computers and hopefully mobile devices on my network so that it can be searched when needed. I'm not sure what the best interface for that would be. A webmail client?

One option would be to use Thunderbird or another client to download the mail once in a while but disable deleting local messages when they are removed from the server. Would Thunderbird store the messages in a format I can use readily with other applications? Or should I use something else to download the mail?

What about situations where messages are moved from one folder to another on the server? Would I get a duplicate locally of the message appearing in both locations? Not sure how the storage and metadata actually are.

Also, is it possible in such a situation to put a message back on the server if I realize it was deleted in error?

Any idea would be welcome. I am a bit stuck.

I can use the command line comfortably but ideally I'd have a solution that doesn't rely on the terminal to find find messages and such. I don't really like terminal mail clients.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I havent looked into these other formats because maildir works for me. I can saxe local backups, remoxe mail from the serveg, and even put it back later. All plain text.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you put your maildir on a (disk attached to a) raspberry pi, install mutt, and make that pi accessible by ssh you always have access to your mail.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does mutt have search capabilities? Is it optimized such that it would be effective with large mailboxes? Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mutt (and neomutt) has very nice search capabilities, supporting regex search within specific mailboxes. However, it is a relatively slow search - unbearably slow for full text search in large mailboxes.

Here, notmuch is usually used to complement mutt. It's a very fast (full-text) mail indexer, which can be directly integrated in mutt and allows much faster searching (among other things such as advanced mail tagging, virtual mailboxes and more).

It is generally a royal pain to set up with so many moving parts but once you do it is a very fast, comfortable mail environment if you're comfy with the terminal.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks for this! I'm going to try to get this set up. It sounds perfect.