Re: isync plus dovecot?

[Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>]

Dan Christensen <jdc@uwo.ca> writes:

> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>
>> I'm finally trying to ditch nnml for mail reading, and move to imap.
>> Offlineimap plus dovecot seems to be a popular solution (I am offline a
>> lot), but I also saw a lot of complaints about offlineimap, and the
>> suggestion of isync/mbsync as a replacement.
>
> I've used offlineimap for a couple of years, and I find it works well.
> I've posted on the offlineimap list a way to get it to sync some of
> the Gnus specific flags, like gnus-expire.  If you can't find the
> message, let me know and I'll dig it up.
>
>> Specifically, you tell offlineimap to deliver to dovecot with a line
>> like:
>>
>> preauthtunnel = /usr/lib/dovecot/imap -o mail_location=maildir:$HOME/Maildir
>>
>> I can't find the equivalent command for mbsync.
>
> Nothing in my .offlineimaprc mentions dovecot, and I don't use a
> preauthtunnel.  I just tell offlineimap to connect to an IMAP server
> at 127.0.0.1 and to another IMAP server at a certain host name.
>
>> Is it enough just to have mbsync dump to a Maildir directly, and then
>> tell gnus to access that maildir via dovecot?
>
> That might work too, but I decided to let dovecot be in charge of the
> Maildir directory, and make both Gnus and offlineimap interact with that
> directory via the IMAP protocol.  My method of syncing the non-standard
> flags relies on this.
>
> I'm also curious to hear about alternatives to offlineimap, so I hope
> some people reply with their experience.

Ugh, clearly I just don't know enough about how this all actually works
to make an informed decision. I don't even really get what letting
dovecot "be in charge of the Maildir directory" really means. And if the
other Eric is able to use the native Gnus agent and it works fine
offline, why is everyone jumping through all these hoops?

Maybe I'll just spend some time with google until I actually understand
what's happening...

Thanks,
Eric

PS I'm also using gmail. Actually I have four addresses, all of them
google, three of them google apps domains. Yeesh