5:15 p.m.
Hello. I'm a mutt-kz newb.
I've been using notmuch (for search only) with mutt for a while,
but didn't try mutt-kz until yesterday. After light testing, it
looks pretty nice and I'm ready to try it "for real".
However, I'm wondering about how best to integrate my existing
Maildir-based setup with notmuch's tag-based organization. I
didn't see a lot of info on this online (aside from notmuchfs,
which might be workable), so I'm looking for options and ideas.
Currently, my setup involves several dozen inboxes and at least a
hundred archive folders. They're distinguished mostly by
filename. For example:
~/mail/personal/in/ Inbox for personal messages
~/mail/personal/ Archive for personal messages
~/mail/mutt-kz/in/ Inbox for messages related to mutt-kz
~/mail/mutt-kz/ Archive for messages related to mutt-kz
~/mail/bzr/in/ Inbox for messages related to bzr
~/mail/bzr/ Archive for messages related to bzr
...
~/mail/INBOX/ Catch-all for everything else
And so on.
So, I'm hoping I'll be able to maintain some similar sort of
organization on-disk, to facilitate access by shell scripts and
such, and in case I ever decide to stop using tags. Maybe that's
silly of me; I don't know yet.
My first step is to figure out how to tag messages based on my
existing Maildir structure. I don't mind doing this on a
per-directory basis, but ` <modify-labels> refuses to work while
I'm viewing a Maildir. It only works on virtual folders. Is
there some other easy way I should edit tags for Maildirs?
From there, I'm wondering how to keep tags and Maildirs in sync.
Or, at least, mostly in sync. Notmuchfs? Some weird system of
hard links or symlinks? Something else? What are the options
here? If I'm using notmuchfs, is it worth even attempting to
keep the backing store organized?
Also, any hints are welcome on the easiest way to do initial
tagging. So far, I'm thinking probably notmuch-deliver via
procmail, since I'm already sorting via procmail anyway. Dunno
if I can get it to still deliver to specific Maildirs though.
-- Selene
5:42 p.m.
Hi,
[...]
~/mail/personal/in/ Inbox for personal messages
~/mail/personal/ Archive for personal messages
~/mail/mutt-kz/in/ Inbox for messages related to mutt-kz
~/mail/mutt-kz/ Archive for messages related to mutt-kz
~/mail/bzr/in/ Inbox for messages related to bzr
~/mail/bzr/ Archive for messages related to bzr
...
~/mail/INBOX/ Catch-all for everything else
And so on.
So, I'm hoping I'll be able to maintain some similar sort of
organization on-disk, to facilitate access by shell scripts and
such, and in case I ever decide to stop using tags. Maybe that's
silly of me; I don't know yet.
My first step is to figure out how to tag messages based on my
existing Maildir structure.
Notmuch automatically 'tags' messages based on which folder they are in.
This should find all your 'bzr' archive messages.
notmuch search folder:mail and folder:bzr and not folder:in
I don't mind doing this on a per-directory basis, but `
<modify-labels> refuses to work while I'm viewing a Maildir. It only
works on virtual folders. Is there some other easy way I should edit
tags for Maildirs?
Maybe not necessary per the above?
From there, I'm wondering how to keep tags and Maildirs in sync.
Or, at least, mostly in sync. Notmuchfs? Some weird system of
hard links or symlinks? Something else? What are the options
here?
Again, maybe not necessary? 'notmuch new' updates the folder: 'tags' as
you move the message between various folders.
If I'm using notmuchfs, is it worth even attempting to keep the
backing store organized?
I also had gazillion mail folders, but nowdays I have just three, INBOX,
archive and general. INBOX is everything I should see on my phone too,
'general' is inbox for everything else which I don't want to see on my
phone and 'archive' is being populated by mails which are removed from
my IMAP account.
Also, any hints are welcome on the easiest way to do initial
tagging. So far, I'm thinking probably notmuch-deliver via
procmail, since I'm already sorting via procmail anyway. Dunno
if I can get it to still deliver to specific Maildirs though.
Why not keep the mails where they are, and just run 'notmuch new'?
Cheers
--
Vlad
7:07 p.m.
* Vladimir Marek <Vladimir.Marek(a)oracle.com> wrote:
Notmuch automatically 'tags' messages based on which folder
they are in.
This should find all your 'bzr' archive messages.
notmuch search folder:mail and folder:bzr and not folder:in
Interesting. This definitely offers some options I wasn't aware
of, and it solves my difficulty with initial tagging based on
Maildirs.
I'm now debating whether this is the best thing since sliced
cheese, or if folder-based methods defeat the whole point of
using tags. I mean, is there much value in mixing folder: tags
with tag: tags, or does it make more sense to drop folders and
use tag: tags exclusively?
(rhetorical question, but if anyone has insight about it, let me
know)
> If I'm using notmuchfs, is it worth even attempting to keep
> the backing store organized?
I also had gazillion mail folders, but nowdays I have just
three, INBOX, archive and general. INBOX is everything I should
see on my phone too, 'general' is inbox for everything else
which I don't want to see on my phone and 'archive' is being
populated by mails which are removed from my IMAP account.
I'm considering doing something like that, and mounting notmuchfs
when I want to access it as a folder hierarchy. My backing store
would then be much much simpler, with actual folders only for
work stuff, personal stuff, and a few extras for archived old
stuff. So, like, maybe ten total Maildirs instead of a hundred
something.
Then again, it looks like 'afew' could also be highly relevant...
and would provide some nice extras like thread killing and
bayesian auto-tagging. It could save me a bunch of manual
archiving and tagging, while simultaneously syncing tags back to
the structure of a Maildir hierarchy (as a side effect of tags).
Why not keep the mails where they are, and just run 'notmuch
new'?
I run 'notmuch new' every few minutes from a script which fetches
and sorts mail. So, that's covered... I'm just debating whether
it's a good idea for me to abandon my future-proof plaintext
posix-friendly Maildir system or if I'm okay depending on a
less-established database plus an even less-established virtual
filesystem. It looks great in terms of features, but I know I'll
be kicking myself in ten years if mutt-kz or notmuchfs dies.
I think I'll sleep on it and do more experiments and try to learn
more before settling on a solution. So far though, 'afew' is
looking really nice.
-- Selene
2:38 a.m.
On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 06:07:37PM -0600, Selene Scriven wrote:
I run 'notmuch new' every few minutes from a script which fetches
and sorts mail. So, that's covered... I'm just debating whether
it's a good idea for me to abandon my future-proof plaintext
posix-friendly Maildir system or if I'm okay depending on a
less-established database plus an even less-established virtual
filesystem. It looks great in terms of features, but I know I'll
be kicking myself in ten years if mutt-kz or notmuchfs dies.
Since notmuch allows you to keep your present directory based
organisation while using it's tag based organisation, why choose one
over the other? I would start using notmuch without changing the
directory hierarchy. Things can always go wrong.
--
Suvayu
Open source is the future. It sets us free.
9:58 a.m.
On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 3:38 AM, Suvayu Ali <fatkasuvayu+linux(a)gmail.com>wrote:
On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 06:07:37PM -0600, Selene Scriven wrote:
>
> I run 'notmuch new' every few minutes from a script which fetches
> and sorts mail. So, that's covered... I'm just debating whether
> it's a good idea for me to abandon my future-proof plaintext
> posix-friendly Maildir system or if I'm okay depending on a
> less-established database plus an even less-established virtual
> filesystem. It looks great in terms of features, but I know I'll
> be kicking myself in ten years if mutt-kz or notmuchfs dies.
Since notmuch allows you to keep your present directory based
organisation while using it's tag based organisation, why choose one
over the other? I would start using notmuch without changing the
directory hierarchy. Things can always go wrong.
--
Suvayu
Open source is the future. It sets us free.
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I agree with Suvayu. You do not have to choose one over the other, and the
two can coexist quite peacefully. At my previous place of employment, I used
both folders and tags so that whenever I accessed my mail through the
company
web interface, I still had some sense of organization.
Regards,
Ram Raghunathan
6:46 p.m.
So, I've been experimenting more with notmuch, mutt-kz, and afew.
One issue I've noticed is that notmuch forgets everything it
knows about a message (such as tags I've assigned) after that
message is [s]aved from one maildir to another in mutt... which
is probably because mutt actually does a copy-then-delete instead
of simply moving it. Any idea how to avoid this?
Everything works fine if I let 'afew' move the messages, but that
requires first configuring rules about how and when to move
messages. It's nice for archiving mailing list messages into
per-list maildirs, but not so nice for arbitrary message
re-organization.
Mostly though, mutt-kz has been working well. I had some weird
display issues when trying to view a message with the sidebar
enabled, but I worked around that by binding macros to hide and
show the sidebar based on whether I was in the index or pager
view.
So far, 'afew' seems to be good at auto-tagging mailing lists and
moving messages around automatically based on arbitrary
per-maildir rules. I haven't gotten its Bayesian classifier to
work yet, haven't tried its thread-kill feature, and don't plan
to use its spam filter. I really hope the Bayesian classifier
will be able to recognize a bunch of message types I haven't
explicitly routed into per-topic maildirs though.
I'm using a combination of folder: tags and tag: tags to organize
email and create virtual folders, but my setup is far from
complete. At the very least, I have two different mutt-kz
configs -- one for work email and one for everything else.
Also, it has been very nice so far having multiple views of my
email... for example, one view for just my primary inbox, one
for all combined inboxes, one for stuff I need to do, etc. But
it'll take quite a while for my setup to really become mature.
-- Selene
6:51 a.m.
On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 05:46:32PM -0600, Selene Scriven wrote:
So, I've been experimenting more with notmuch, mutt-kz, and
afew.
One issue I've noticed is that notmuch forgets everything it
knows about a message (such as tags I've assigned) after that
message is [s]aved from one maildir to another in mutt... which
is probably because mutt actually does a copy-then-delete instead
of simply moving it. Any idea how to avoid this?
Note that notmuch uses Message Id to identify the email, so it's
possible to move the emails and then cal "notmuch new" to refresh DB
and all paths will be updated -- it means that notmuch does not
forget anything, but notmuch users have to care about maildir and
notmuch DB synchronization.
The mutt renames emails very often as it's normal for maildirs where
email flags are stored in filenames. This situation is handled by
mutt-kz and such filename changes are automatically applied to
notmuch DB too. It means that you don't have to call "notmuch new"
after (for example) read/unread email flag change.
Unfortunately, save-message mutt command is not "notmuch-ized". I'll
try to fix it. It should not be so big problem.
Karel
--
Karel Zak <kzak(a)redhat.com>
http://karelzak.blogspot.com
3827
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mutt-kz@lists.fedoraproject.org
6 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
Karel Zak -
Ram Raghunathan -
Selene Scriven -
Suvayu Ali -
Vladimir Marek