[Q] same message in multiple groups & expiry

[Kai Grossjohann <grossjohann@charly.cs.uni-dortmund.de>]

Hi there,

I'm thinking about revising my strategy of dealing with mail.  Up to
now, I had few folders and have put each mail into exactly one
folder.  This has saved me from lots of potential problems that arise
if you put messages into several folders at once.

(FWIW, I do not use total-expire.)

If a message has been put into groups A and B by the splitting process
there are a number of operations that I'd like to perform with the
message, while in group A.  I'll formulate the operations in terms of
"copies" (even though they might be hard links or whatnot), and I'll
disregard nnmail-expiry-wait and speak as if a message marked as
expirable will be deleted from disk immediately.

(1) Remove the group A copy but keep the group B copy.  Mark the group
    B copy as read or dormant or something (optional).

(2) Delete all copies of this message.

(3) Move the group A copy into group C but keep the group B copy as it
    is.  I don't care what mark the group B copy will have.

(4) Remove all copies of this message and put a new copy of it into
    group C.

(5) Put an additional copy into group C.

Also, I'm unsure of what the following operations will do:

  - Mark as expirable; does this correspond to (1) or (2), or
    something else entirely?

  - "B c" should be fairly clear, it's operation (5), isn't it.

  - "B m"; does this correspond to (3) or to (4)?

How does total-expire interact with all of this?

How have your experiences been with splitting mail to be put into
several groups?

tia,
kai
-- 
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