imap equivalent to nnmail-resplit-incoming? (fetch from directory)

imap equivalent to nnmail-resplit-incoming? (fetch from directory)

[John Owens]

nnmail-resplit-incoming seems to look at an entire directory of files.
Is there an equivalent for nnimap?

What I'd like to do is have procmail split incoming mail into several
spool files. In particular I would like a "inbox" file that is a
subset of my incoming mail, because then I can have a biff-like
program check against that file for new mail (and I don't want it
triggering on my bulk mail). 

How can I configure nnimap to fetch from several spool files? It would
be nice if it would fetch everything from a directory, but if that
doesn't work, I can certainly name my spool files individually in
.gnus. I'd like to run splitting on each of them if possible.

JDO

Re: imap equivalent to nnmail-resplit-incoming? (fetch from

[Kai Großjohann]

John Owens <jowens@ece.ucdavis.edu> writes:

> nnmail-resplit-incoming seems to look at an entire directory of files.
> Is there an equivalent for nnimap?

No, I'm afraid you'll have to move the mail to an IMAP inbox.

> What I'd like to do is have procmail split incoming mail into several
> spool files. In particular I would like a "inbox" file that is a
> subset of my incoming mail, because then I can have a biff-like
> program check against that file for new mail (and I don't want it
> triggering on my bulk mail). 

Please don't talk about files when talking about nnimap.  That only
leads to confusion.  nnimap looks at IMAP folders and doesn't care
how they are represented on the server.  (The server might ask the
Oracle of Delphi, as far as nnimap is concerned.)

> How can I configure nnimap to fetch from several spool files? It would
> be nice if it would fetch everything from a directory, but if that
> doesn't work, I can certainly name my spool files individually in
> .gnus. I'd like to run splitting on each of them if possible.

See the variable nnimap-split-inbox.  It can be a list of inboxes.
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Re: imap equivalent to nnmail-resplit-incoming? (fetch from

[John Owens]

kai.grossjohann@gmx.net (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> John Owens <jowens@ece.ucdavis.edu> writes:
>
>> nnmail-resplit-incoming seems to look at an entire directory of files.
>> Is there an equivalent for nnimap?
>
> No, I'm afraid you'll have to move the mail to an IMAP inbox.
> ...
> See the variable nnimap-split-inbox.  It can be a list of inboxes.

I guess this is the point I'm missing ... if I have my mail in a spool
file (on my system, ~/Maildrop/username), how do I move this mail to
an IMAP inbox? Is there server magic that knows the location of my
spool file? Since I'd like to have multiple spool files, I hope it's
configurable. I'm even comfortable with having multiple spool files
that all map to a single IMAP inbox and I'll just split from
there. But I do want multiple spool files.

Also, are there any interlock problems with having gnus try to read
from a spool file into an IMAP inbox and procmail possibly writing at
the same time?

JDO

Re: imap equivalent to nnmail-resplit-incoming? (fetch from

[Kai Großjohann]

John Owens <jowens@ece.ucdavis.edu> writes:

> kai.grossjohann@gmx.net (Kai Großjohann) writes:
>
>> John Owens <jowens@ece.ucdavis.edu> writes:
>>
>>> nnmail-resplit-incoming seems to look at an entire directory of files.
>>> Is there an equivalent for nnimap?
>>
>> No, I'm afraid you'll have to move the mail to an IMAP inbox.
>> ...
>> See the variable nnimap-split-inbox.  It can be a list of inboxes.
>
> I guess this is the point I'm missing ... if I have my mail in a spool
> file (on my system, ~/Maildrop/username), how do I move this mail to
> an IMAP inbox? Is there server magic that knows the location of my
> spool file? Since I'd like to have multiple spool files, I hope it's
> configurable. I'm even comfortable with having multiple spool files
> that all map to a single IMAP inbox and I'll just split from
> there. But I do want multiple spool files.
>
> Also, are there any interlock problems with having gnus try to read
> from a spool file into an IMAP inbox and procmail possibly writing at
> the same time?

Ayee.  Many things are potentially relevant here.

First of all, here is what I think that's happening: your MTA
delivers to a file ~/Maildrop/username.  You're running the UW imap
server which is careful to resync with the underlying files at all
times.  The UW imap server shows you this file as the IMAP folder
INBOX (say).

From Gnus' point of view, the file does not exist.  Only the IMAP
server exists and it has a folder INBOX.  When reading mail, Gnus
will read the group nnimap:INBOX and split messages from there into
other groups.

So the mapping between files and IMAP folders is done by the IMAP
server -- Gnus has nothing to do with it.

There is no hidden magic between Gnus and the IMAP server.  Something
like `spool files that map to an IMAP inbox' does not exist in Gnus.
That's the IMAP server's business.

Okay.  The above was relevant if you use nnimap.  I think that's what
you want.

It's also possible to use IMAP as a mail-source.  That is, you can
put an `imap' entry (or two) into the variable mail-sources.  But
this will fetch messages from the IMAP server and drop them into
local groups, perhaps nnml or nnfolder.

It is not possible, I'm afraid, to tell Gnus to READ FROM a FILE and
then SAVE TO an imap FOLDER.  Sorry for the shouting.

So here's what you do:

* Arrange procmail and the imap server to talk to each other so that
  incoming email ends up in an imap folder somehow.  Gnus is not
  involved in this part.

  - One way to achieve this is to tell procmail to write to a file,
    and to ensure that procmail and the imap server do proper file
    locking, and to make sure that the imap server groks external
    updates.  This is the usual mode of operation with the UWash
    server, I gather.

  - Or you could use the maildir format where a folder is a directory.
    The maildir format makes it easy for two programs to write to the
    same folder, and does not require file locking.

  - Another possibility is to tell procmail to invoke a `deliver'
    program which passes the email to the imap server using
    interprocess communication (the LMTP protocol, perhaps).  Such a
    `deliver' program can usually be told to drop the email into a
    certain imap folder.

* Arrange for Gnus to get emails from imap folders A, B, C (cf
  variable nnimap-split-inbox) and pass them through the splitting
  machinery and drop them into other imap folders F1, ..., Fn.  The
  folders A, B, C are the ones from the first step.  The folders F1,
  ..., Fn are what you read with Gnus.

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