Re: some mail annoyances

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

-----8< snip

> Well, lessee.  I have over 400 mail folders comprising over 100MB of
> email, all in mbox format.  I need to conveniently transfer messages
> between folders (I do occasionally reorganize folders).  I do use
> procmail, but only use it to break out mailing list from personal
> mail---if I were to use GNUS, I'd like to shuttle it all into
> appropriate folders, but don't know how to do it in some cases.
> (For example, mail from userA to me should go in the userA folder,
> but mail from userA to me *and* userB, userC, userD and userE should
> go in the groupZ folder.)  The deletion/expiration stuff can be a
> bit confusing;

A small point here, about splitting:  I believe gnus "fancy splitting"
can handle that setup, but if you are already familiar with procmail,
then why not use procmail to do the more complicated splitting.
Procamil can easily handle the problem you present because you can
list as many conditions as you like in a  single rule.  Gnus can be
made to slurp from procmail created spools, putting the messages into
similarly named gnus groups.

The deletion expiration stuff is a bit confusing but becomes less so
if you kind of forget deletion as an option, like you would on an nntp
group.  Think of deletion as something taken care of by a "higher
power" and you just guide its hand as to when with your expiry.

Not quite that simple, but as I understand it, if you leave gnus in
default settings then nothing in mail gets expired unless you
explicitly mark it for expiry with an "E"  and then only in about 7
days when the "higher power" kicks in.

Taking a word of advice from Karl K. I've switched the bindings of "E"
(gnus-summary-mark-as-expirabl) and "e"  (gnus-summary-edit-article)
Since expiring is much more common function for me.  That makes it
easier to mark as `expirable', since no <SHIFT> is needed