Re: isync plus dovecot?

[Dan Christensen <jdc@uwo.ca>]

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.

Dan