splitting from an imap inbox to nnml groups?

[Bill White <minutiae@gmail.com>]

Is there a way to automatically split the contents of an imap INBOX
into the existing nnml hierarchy on my local machine?

I tried imap splitting: first, (setq nnimap-split-inbox '("INBOX")),
then set nnimap-split-rule to nnmail-split-fancy, which has targets of
the form dir1.dir2.dir3.  In the first imap split, the messages didn't
go into my nnml hieriarchy into dir1/dir2/dir3; instead, they went
into files in my home dir named "dir1.dir2.dir3".  So it seems using
nnmail-split-fancy with imap doesn't work out-of-the-box.

Now I enter INBOX, mark all messages, and respool them with the nnml
backend - a bit inconvenient, but it works.  Something automated that
splits imap->nnml would be just the thing.

Thanks for any ideas -

bw
-- 
Bill White
"No, ma'am, we're musicians."