archiving old mail

archiving old mail

[Nicolas Kowalski]

Hello.

Is there a way to make Gnus move the old (say, 30 days old) mail I
sent or received to some archive groups with the year+month digits
appended ?

What I do now to achieve this is :

- Enter the group `mygroup' I want to archive,
- select messages I sent/received during the MM month,
- move them to a nnfolder group `mygroup.YYYY.MM'


As I have a number of groups, I would like to automate this.

Thanks in advance.
Nicolas.

Re: archiving old mail

[Karl Kleinpaste]

Nicolas Kowalski <Nicolas.Kowalski@imag.fr> writes:
> Is there a way to make Gnus move the old (say, 30 days old) mail I
> sent or received to some archive groups with the year+month digits
> appended ?

Group properties will do most of this for you.  I do this kind of
expiry for quite a few groups.  nnml is my gnus-select-method (nntp is
secondary) and I expire my group "personal.general" to its archive
companion this way:

((total-expire . t)
 (expiry-wait . 30)
 (expiry-target . "archive.current.personal.general"))

expiry-target is new in Oort.  Your challenge is to find a way to make
the value of expiry-target into an eval -- I don't know if that's
possible or not in the current scheme.

Re: archiving old mail

[Simon Josefsson]

Karl Kleinpaste <karl@charcoal.com> writes:

> Nicolas Kowalski <Nicolas.Kowalski@imag.fr> writes:
>> Is there a way to make Gnus move the old (say, 30 days old) mail I
>> sent or received to some archive groups with the year+month digits
>> appended ?
>
> Group properties will do most of this for you.  I do this kind of
> expiry for quite a few groups.  nnml is my gnus-select-method (nntp is
> secondary) and I expire my group "personal.general" to its archive
> companion this way:
>
> ((total-expire . t)
>  (expiry-wait . 30)
>  (expiry-target . "archive.current.personal.general"))
>
> expiry-target is new in Oort.  Your challenge is to find a way to make
> the value of expiry-target into an eval -- I don't know if that's
> possible or not in the current scheme.

`expiry-target' can be a function, it will be called narrowed to the
message in question.

Re: archiving old mail

[Nicolas Kowalski]

Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:

>>
>> expiry-target is new in Oort.  Your challenge is to find a way to make
>> the value of expiry-target into an eval -- I don't know if that's
>> possible or not in the current scheme.
>
> `expiry-target' can be a function, it will be called narrowed to the
> message in question.


(Please, be comprehensive : I am a lisp newbie)
 
So, I could use something like :

(defun gnus-user-expiry-target-function (group)
  "Return the archive group filename"
  (concat "archive." group "." 
    (format-time-string "%Y.%m" 
		       (safe-date-to-time 
			(mail-header-date the-message))))
    )                   
                                          ^^^^^^^^^^^

My problem is that I do not known how to get `the-message' with the
current buffer.

May somebody help ?

Thanks.
Nicolas.

Re: archiving old mail

[Simon Josefsson]

Nicolas Kowalski <Nicolas.Kowalski@imag.fr> writes:

> Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:
>
>>>
>>> expiry-target is new in Oort.  Your challenge is to find a way to make
>>> the value of expiry-target into an eval -- I don't know if that's
>>> possible or not in the current scheme.
>>
>> `expiry-target' can be a function, it will be called narrowed to the
>> message in question.
>
>
> (Please, be comprehensive : I am a lisp newbie)
>  
> So, I could use something like :
>
> (defun gnus-user-expiry-target-function (group)
>   "Return the archive group filename"
>   (concat "archive." group "." 
>     (format-time-string "%Y.%m" 
> 		       (safe-date-to-time 
> 			(mail-header-date the-message))))
>     )                   
>                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> My problem is that I do not known how to get `the-message' with the
> current buffer.

Perhaps the following works?

(expiry-target . my-expiry-target-function)

(defun my-expiry-target-function (group)
  "Return the archive group filename"
  (concat "archive." group "." 
	  (format-time-string "%Y.%m" 
			      (safe-date-to-time 
			       (message-fetch-field "Date")))))

Re: archiving old mail

[Nicolas Kowalski]

Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:

> Nicolas Kowalski <Nicolas.Kowalski@imag.fr> writes:
>
>> Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:
>>
>>>>
>>>> expiry-target is new in Oort.  Your challenge is to find a way to make
>>>> the value of expiry-target into an eval -- I don't know if that's
>>>> possible or not in the current scheme.
>>>
>>> `expiry-target' can be a function, it will be called narrowed to the
>>> message in question.
>>

<snip bad_code>

> Perhaps the following works?
>
> (expiry-target . my-expiry-target-function)
>
> (defun my-expiry-target-function (group)
>   "Return the archive group filename"
>   (concat "archive." group "." 
> 	  (format-time-string "%Y.%m" 
> 			      (safe-date-to-time 
> 			       (message-fetch-field "Date")))))


Unfortunately no. I just tried with a big group. The expiry process
takes much more time, but no archive group is created. 

Hmm, this is perhaps the trick : the archive group should exist before
the expiration process begins. What is the function for this ?

Nicolas.

Re: archiving old mail

[Simon Josefsson]

Nicolas Kowalski <Nicolas.Kowalski@imag.fr> writes:

>> Perhaps the following works?
>>
>> (expiry-target . my-expiry-target-function)
>>
>> (defun my-expiry-target-function (group)
>>   "Return the archive group filename"
>>   (concat "archive." group "." 
>> 	  (format-time-string "%Y.%m" 
>> 			      (safe-date-to-time 
>> 			       (message-fetch-field "Date")))))
>
>
> Unfortunately no. I just tried with a big group. The expiry process
> takes much more time, but no archive group is created. 
>
> Hmm, this is perhaps the trick : the archive group should exist before
> the expiration process begins. What is the function for this ?

C-h k for `G m' in the group buffer says `gnus-group-make-group',
perhaps you can use the function directly, or you can look in that
function to see what you have to do.

Re: archiving old mail

[Nevin Kapur]

Nicolas Kowalski <Nicolas.Kowalski@imag.fr> writes:

> What I do now to achieve this is :
>
> - Enter the group `mygroup' I want to archive,
> - select messages I sent/received during the MM month,
> - move them to a nnfolder group `mygroup.YYYY.MM'
>
>
> As I have a number of groups, I would like to automate this.

I just submitted a patch that will allow you to say

(expiry-target . nnmail-fancy-expiry-target)
(nnmail-fancy-expiry-targets '(("from" ".*" "nnfolder:mygroup" "%Y-%b")))

in the group's parameter and the right thing would happen.

Using the gnus-parameters variable you can probably automate it for
all your groups.

-- 
Nevin