Quickly Migrating ~/Mail/* to gnus nnfolder

Quickly Migrating ~/Mail/* to gnus nnfolder

[Chris Richards]

Howdy.

Is there a suggested way to migrate mbox format files under ~/Mail/
into gnus?  I have 61 "groups" in 14 (sub-)directories.

For example:

~/Mail/humour
~/Mail/people/bob
~/Mail/people/jane
~/Mail/work/project1/defects

into

nnfolder:humour
nnfolder:people.bob
nnfolder:people.jane
nnfolder:work.project1.defects

I tried to manually do one by creating a nndoc group and a nnfolder
group.  The doc group was the old mbox file.  I moved the messages and
tried to kill the nndoc group.  It sorta of went away... replaced by
group 'nil' ;)

This is way annoying.  Should I just leave them as nndoc groups?  Can
I split into them later?

Any suggestions?

Cheers,
cjr

Re: Quickly Migrating ~/Mail/* to gnus nnfolder

[Harry Putnam]

Chris Richards <cjr@netpliance.net> writes:

> Howdy.
> 
> Is there a suggested way to migrate mbox format files under ~/Mail/
> into gnus?  I have 61 "groups" in 14 (sub-)directories.

Respooling is one good way ( `B r' in Summary)

The rest depends on what kind of groups you want.  It would involve
setting the secondary select method to "SOMEBACKEND" like nnml
nnfolder nnmh etc.  

You can access all your mail groups with "nneething" in one stroke by
creating an "nneething" group at address ~/Mail.  You will see how it
works like emacs in dired mode (sort of)  
> 
> For example:
> 
> ~/Mail/humour
> ~/Mail/people/bob
> ~/Mail/people/jane
> ~/Mail/work/project1/defects
> 
> into
> 
> nnfolder:humour
> nnfolder:people.bob
> nnfolder:people.jane
> nnfolder:work.project1.defects

Set your split rules to send the messages to the proper nnfolder groups
then process mark each message in a group and `respool'  `M P a' in
summary buffer will process mark all visible messages.


Only use the above method if you feel you know enough gnus.  Otherwise
the method you lay out below (with a few provisos) should work, just a
little more time consuming.

> 
> I tried to manually do one by creating a nndoc group and a nnfolder
> group.  The doc group was the old mbox file.  I moved the messages and
> tried to kill the nndoc group.  It sorta of went away... replaced by
> group 'nil' ;)

That method should work with no hitches.  However nndoc does not
supprt `B m' (move) so use `B c' copy  after process marking all messages.

To kill an nndoc group should only require a simple `C-k'.  No muss no
fuss, just gone.

> This is way annoying.  Should I just leave them as nndoc groups?  Can
> I split into them later?

No, you can't split into them.   A simple `C-k' should remove any
nndoc group.

Re: Quickly Migrating ~/Mail/* to gnus nnfolder

[Harry Putnam]

Chris Richards <cjr@netpliance.net> writes:

Chris,  A point I failed to mention:  Before moving your groups to
there new home, your setup below should be moved
to another directory since gnus will (by default) want to use ~/Mail.

Like nearly everthing in gnus, that is settable to a directory of your
choice.  It may be easier in your case to simply rename ~/Mail to ~/MailX
and create a new "Mail" before you begin moving things.

If you have some mail client other than gnus writing to ~/Mail that
should also be changes as it will almost certainly cause problems.

As I mentioned, you can select a Directory of your choice for gnus if
that seems easier.

> 
> ~/Mail/humour
> ~/Mail/people/bob
> ~/Mail/people/jane
> ~/Mail/work/project1/defects