Re: using v5.8.8, would like to compress a mail group

[prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc)]

dave@bfnet.com writes:
> I'm using gnus v5.8.8, and I use nnmail-split-fancy to sort my mail
> into groups.  I have one mail group that is quite large that I want to
> 'freeze' into a compressed state so that I can later 'thaw' it and
> access it with all the ease that I currently do.  Is there a gnus
> function that will let me do this to a single group?

No Gnus function that I know of, but with nnmaildir, you can tar up a
group (including marks, but not group parameters) and delete the
original.  Then you can untar it later.

> I don't expect to get mail that gets split into that group, but if I
> do, will that mail get merged when I 'thaw?'

With nnmaildir, you can't (yet) split mail into a nonexistent group.
This would signal an error, probably.  So after tarring, you'd delete
the messages, but not the group itself.  I think you could merge them
later just by unpacking the tarball over the existing group.  But if
you're very paranoid, you might first want to check the output of "tar
tf group.tar" to make sure none of the files already exist.


paul