From frenkiel at gmail.com Tue Sep 5 11:59:18 2023 From: frenkiel at gmail.com (Pierre Frenkiel) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] archive not rebuilt Message-ID: <1ecaec45-e185-e1f5-717c-64e8c20ac3e@gmail.com> hi, I expected to find some recent posts in the alpine archive, but I found that the last rebuilt was from July 2022, although it is supposed to be done every day. Any explanation? best regards Pierre Frenkiel From peter at asgalon.net Thu Sep 7 10:42:45 2023 From: peter at asgalon.net (Peter Koellner) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] remote address book Message-ID: <6c32a954-1b52-7013-6a86-6a2c6de96835@asgalon.net> Hi! I am using alpine on a couple of different machines, one is a MacBook Pro, one Air and one Devuan Linux. For some reason, the remote address book on the linux machine differs from the ones on the apples. I had added some entry there, which does not show up when I start alpine on the linux machine. I have now running the same version 2.26 on both. The address book location look identical. The only difference I see is that on the linux system, under setup/config/normally hidden... there is an entry "Last Version Used" = 6.26 which I don't have on the apples. Probably has nothing to do with this. The user home directory on the apples goes back to an original mbp from 2006, the home directory on the linux machine is probably derived from the same around 2012, which goes back to a copy of the last common ancestor from 2005 or so, so basic set of inherited rc files should be more or less the same. I occasionally do have difficulties with the addressbook on other machines after I added some entry on either the linux or one of the macs, not exactly sure under what conditions. The remote addressbook server and folder path is exactly the same on all machines, the alpine -p alias are identical with the same remote_pinerc url. AAny ideas what is happening there? Regards Peter -- From peter at asgalon.net Thu Sep 7 10:59:57 2023 From: peter at asgalon.net (Peter Koellner) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] remote address book In-Reply-To: <6c32a954-1b52-7013-6a86-6a2c6de96835@asgalon.net> References: <6c32a954-1b52-7013-6a86-6a2c6de96835@asgalon.net> Message-ID: <353a72c9-9831-98f5-32c3-dfa999e5ec8a@asgalon.net> On Thu, 7 Sep 2023, Peter Koellner wrote: > macs, not exactly sure under what conditions. The remote addressbook > server and folder path is exactly the same on all machines, the alpine > -p alias are identical with the same remote_pinerc url. AAny ideas > what is happening there? This is strange. Adding a new address on the linux version did not work with "Addressbook changed" message, but deleting the old alpha alpine mailing list address did work, and it then updated the addressbook to the current state... Restarting alpine did not do that before. From x at maillard.im Sat Sep 9 21:12:20 2023 From: x at maillard.im (Xavier Maillard) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? Message-ID: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> Hello, All is said in the title. Does anyone of you practice the Inbox Zero mail strategy inside Alpine ? If so, what tips can you share or what would be the best settings you use ? I recently switched back to Slackware and Alpine (instead of Mac and Mail Mac), so far, I'm like a fish in water but still learnign Alpine again :) Thanks for your help. -- Xavier From bret at busby.net Sun Sep 10 02:19:39 2023 From: bret at busby.net (Bret Busby) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> References: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> Message-ID: On 10/9/23 12:12, Xavier Maillard wrote: > Hello, > > All is said in the title. Does anyone of you practice the Inbox Zero > mail strategy inside Alpine ? If so, what tips can you share or what > would be the best settings you use ? > > I recently switched back to Slackware and Alpine (instead of Mac and > Mail Mac), so far, I'm like a fish in water but still learnign Alpine > again :) > > Thanks for your help. > Perhaps it would be helpful if you would explain what is the "Inbox Zero mail strategy". Some people may be applying it without knowing it bay that name. .. Bret Busby Armadale West Australia (UTC+0800) .............. From x at maillard.im Sun Sep 10 20:56:39 2023 From: x at maillard.im (Xavier Maillard) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: References: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> Message-ID: <518f7676-c6a-83f4-1347-158357d09f28@schach.ware.local> Hi, On Sun, 10 Sep 2023, Bret Busby wrote: > On 10/9/23 12:12, Xavier Maillard wrote: >> Hello, >> >> All is said in the title. Does anyone of you practice the Inbox Zero mail >> strategy inside Alpine ? If so, what tips can you share or what would be >> the best settings you use ? >> > Perhaps it would be helpful if you would explain what is the "Inbox Zero mail > strategy". It consists simply to maintain or be as close as possible to 0 mail in the Inbox folder. Typically you would only check your mails once or twice a day, then each mail in your Inbox should be processed and have 4 actions: either delegate (transfert + CC to you), defer it until you have more time to take care of it, delete/archive if it has no value (newsletters often fall into this), and finally treat it (answer). Once you DO your mails, you'd eventually keep you Inbox under control. Is it clearer ? Some ways to do it: - manually check your mail (and be offline). - keep you MUA closed when you DO not your mails - Create 4 folders (action required, etc.) and keep this stuff under control - etc. I am still learning it thus my initial post. -- Xavier From kolos at tatar.hu Sun Sep 10 21:03:02 2023 From: kolos at tatar.hu (Tatar Kolos) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: <518f7676-c6a-83f4-1347-158357d09f28@schach.ware.local> References: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> <518f7676-c6a-83f4-1347-158357d09f28@schach.ware.local> Message-ID: <95e967f9-8acb-abe5-b263-fc76afeaa9d9@tatar.hu> Hi, In a wider context I try to do this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done One of the foundations of this is what is described here. A non-empty inbox is basically noise which takes effort on your side to manage. What I had to learn from this is that my inbox is not the same as my todolist. Best, Kolos --- PGP ID BC797E3C On Mon, 11 Sep 2023, Xavier Maillard wrote: > Hi, > > On Sun, 10 Sep 2023, Bret Busby wrote: > >> On 10/9/23 12:12, Xavier Maillard wrote: >>> Hello, >>> >>> All is said in the title. Does anyone of you practice the Inbox Zero mail >>> strategy inside Alpine ? If so, what tips can you share or what would be >>> the best settings you use ? >>> >> Perhaps it would be helpful if you would explain what is the "Inbox Zero >> mail strategy". > > It consists simply to maintain or be as close as possible to 0 mail in the > Inbox folder. > > Typically you would only check your mails once or twice a day, then each mail > in your Inbox should be processed and have 4 actions: either delegate > (transfert + CC to you), defer it until you have more time to take care of > it, delete/archive if it has no value (newsletters often fall into this), and > finally treat it (answer). > > Once you DO your mails, you'd eventually keep you Inbox under control. > > Is it clearer ? > > Some ways to do it: > - manually check your mail (and be offline). > - keep you MUA closed when you DO not your mails > - Create 4 folders (action required, etc.) and keep this stuff under control > - etc. > > I am still learning it thus my initial post. > > -- > Xavier > _______________________________________________ > Alpine-info mailing list > Alpine-info@u.washington.edu > http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/alpine-info > > From damion.yates at gmail.com Mon Sep 11 03:21:41 2023 From: damion.yates at gmail.com (damion.yates@gmail.com) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> References: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> Message-ID: On Sun, 10 Sep 2023, Xavier Maillard wrote: > All is said in the title. Does anyone of you practice the Inbox Zero > mail strategy inside Alpine ? If so, what tips can you share or what > would be the best settings you use ? > > I recently switched back to Slackware and Alpine (instead of Mac and > Mail Mac), so far, I'm like a fish in water but still learnign Alpine > again :) Thank you for this email, it's full of nostalgia for me :) I've not had enough spare time due to work and kids to unpack my personal desktop in ~6 years. On that machine my main dist of choice since the 1990s was (technically still is) Slackware. I've used the work provided debian-like dist for years instead. However I do use alpine every day. As my backend is gmail's IMAP, I've configured deleting to do an archive from inbox. However I don't tend to delete (archive) anyway, I do a form of inbox-zero where I make sure everything is read. I only have time to go through email a few times in a day, often a long sweep in the in the early hours if I've had a long day of meetings and then dealing with the kids once I got home. I'll occasionally leave unread emails for the state of reviewing again within a reasonable timescale, but this leads to a slight ramp up of anxiety after a number of days, so I'll sweep through and move to a todo list or reply when I can find time. Viewing the remaining new unreads is as simple as ;snG with a ^W^V and a few -'s to page up, if there are a lot, but I've left historically old emails unread which I constantly ignore. I get between 50 and 500 emails a day, but some of those are pre-filtered into other labels (folders) where I perform the same actions as the inbox. I tend to leave the last several tens of thousands of emails in the various monitored inboxes (incoming-folders=) so that I can search within them. Otherwise they're lost to me short of opening the gmail web UI and using that to look for archived emails. HTH, - Damion From jason-alpine-info at shalott.net Mon Sep 11 04:37:59 2023 From: jason-alpine-info at shalott.net (jason-alpine-info@shalott.net) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> References: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> Message-ID: > All is said in the title. Does anyone of you practice the Inbox Zero > mail strategy inside Alpine ? If so, what tips can you share or what > would be the best settings you use ? I'm not sure that "Inbox Zero" is really a "strategy" that one practices; but I always keep my inbox small enough that the whole thing fits within a single 80x25 terminal window (i.e., fewer than ~20 messages). I think that an important part of this is aggressively saving messages to get them out of the inbox, while having a justified faith that old messages can be found quickly, easily, and reliably when needed. Long long ago, I used to use multiple folders for saving messages, and organized the saved messages based on time or subject matter or sender. But nowadays, I find that approach more limiting, less flexible, and (paradoxically) less organized than just saving everything into a single large saved messages folder. As far as the alpine-specific things you can do to make this approach work well, a) obviously be familiar with alpine's searching/sorting capabilities; b) be aware of the extent to which these intersect with the particular mail storage you are using (e.g., some IMAP servers may not do full-text search over certain headers); and c) to the extent that you can, choose a mail storage system that will be extremely fast at the scale you need. The latter may require substantial technical expertise, but it's pretty necessary, in my opinion. If a search by recipient or date takes more than a second or two on a mailbox with, say, ~100k messages, then you're going to have a bad time. If you're using an IMAP system that's run by somebody else, your only option to get the performance you need may be to mirror your saved messages locally (with tools like offlineimap), and then search your local mirror rather than the server-side copy. In a case like this, I would definitely NOT remove the messages from the remote side when mirroring, nor allow changes to the local mirror to be propagated back to the server. You don't want to get into the business of trying to keep the level of reliability/durability/availability as a professional email system on your personal machine. You want to treat the local copy as a cache, that can be destroyed and re-created at any time from the authoritative copy on the server. If it's possible to run alpine directly on the mail servers, accessin the mail store directly, rather than through an IMAP daemon, may give better performance, or it may give much worse performance -- it varies greatly. A third option may be to access the mail store through an IMAP daemon, but not over a TCP connection; rather by invoking its backend through alpines rsh mechanism. This is my own personal preference; I use Dovecot for IMAP; remote clients connect to the frontend over TCP/TLS (which does auth, etc); local clients directly invoke the IMAP backend (skipping all auth and network connections), which is much faster. You can then get the benefits of indexing and advanced search capabilities that can be configured in Dovecot whether you're using Alpine locally or using any other IMAP client remotely. Hope that helps... Good luck! -Jason From lucio at lambrate.inaf.it Mon Sep 11 13:02:16 2023 From: lucio at lambrate.inaf.it (Lucio Chiappetti) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 11 Sep 2023, jason-alpine-info@shalott.net wrote: > I'm not sure that "Inbox Zero" is really a "strategy" that one practices; I've never heard the term, although I practice something not too different. > but I always keep my inbox small enough that the whole thing fits within > a single 80x25 terminal window (i.e., fewer than ~20 messages). Let us say that is a design goal. At the moment I have 40 messages in mt (local) inbox. > Long long ago, I used to use multiple folders for saving messages, and > organized the saved messages based on time or subject matter or sender. Yes, I still use such policy. I save messages in mail folders according to subject (usually project/subproject) ... and the folder is defaulted for each sender-or-recipient (*) via the Fcc entry in alpine's addressbook. (*) I always *hated* separate saving of sent-mail and received-mail. The colour coding tells me whther the message is/was ingoing or outgoing. I also use a special colour coding and status codes in inbox. A status of "S" (red) means the message was already saved in the destination folder but is still pending in the inbox to be disposed of. A status of "*" (cyan) means it is (saved and) important, prioritary. "N" green is new. Otherwise pending messages in inbox are probably less important, still to be dealt with (say a memo about a trip, to be deleted once I've travelled). By the way, I have currently 1043 folders grouped in 66 directories (done of the directories are also grouped in a [local] folder collection. Of these 787 in 22 directories are of the .Old/Old-yyyy series. I do archive once per year. I would hate having a single long folder (and also would think it to be be slow/unefficient). > If it's possible to run alpine directly on the mail servers, accessin > the mail store directly, rather than through an IMAP daemon, Ah ... all the above is still stored locally on my work machine. Until a few years ago mail was delivered in such local inbox by our MX. Then we were forced to use gsuite (gmail). My arrangement is to use fetchmail to "receive" mail in such local inbox, emulatying the "old way". I fetch gsuite mail every 5 min, and from another rarely used POP server every few hours (all via crontab). > In a case like this, I would definitely NOT remove the messages from the > remote side when mirroring, nor allow changes to the local mirror to be > propagated back to the server. For the POP server fetchmail automatically removes fetched mail. For gsuite it should do the same. Due to the peculiar (read: non-standard) way google servers work, this moves them to a Bin gmail pseudo-folder. For privacy reason I clean that once per day. I usually read mail (from home, or from a laptop) in ssh on my work machine. In principle I could activate a local UW IMAP server on my work machine and use a web-alpine web mailer while away, but I do that VERY seldom. In extreme cases only I use the gmail server directly (e.g. for one day this summer when I was on holiday and my work machine was off for the local electrical room). Then I reverted to my standard usage asap. -- Lucio Chiappetti - INAF/IASF - via Corti 12 - I-20133 Milano (Italy) For more info : http://www.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/personal.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A middle rank researcher at end career is not rich but is in the top 5% of the Italian income tax taxpayers. Does it not sound strange ? From mattack at apple.com Mon Sep 11 13:09:45 2023 From: mattack at apple.com (Matt Ackeret) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> References: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> Message-ID: On Sat, 9 Sep 2023, Xavier Maillard wrote: > All is said in the title. Does anyone of you practice the Inbox Zero mail > strategy inside Alpine ? If so, what tips can you share or what would be the > best settings you use ? Nope. Currently I have 170607 messages in my INBOX. In fact, alpine is partially a reason I filter LESS than I might otherwise, since it's slightly more of a pain to switch mailboxes in alpine than in a GUI mail program. (FYI I run Mail alongside alpine.. obviously a lot of email is rich text or html nowadays, and I do some things in alpine, some things in Mail.) From info at simonh.uk Mon Sep 11 13:30:50 2023 From: info at simonh.uk (Simon Harrison) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> References: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> Message-ID: <20230911213050.1129e441@jupiter> On Sun, 10 Sep 2023 06:12:20 +0200 (CEST) Xavier Maillard wrote: > Hello, > > All is said in the title. Does anyone of you practice the Inbox Zero > mail strategy inside Alpine ? If so, what tips can you share or what > would be the best settings you use ? > > I recently switched back to Slackware and Alpine (instead of Mac and > Mail Mac), so far, I'm like a fish in water but still learnign Alpine > again :) > > Thanks for your help. > Years ago, I tried (and succeeded) in achieving inbox zero (on multiple accounts). I spent weeks to get there. My work account had, if I remember correctly, about 3,000 emails sat in the inbox that I duly put into the relevant folder, or deleted. Today, I have a different approach which I find works really well for me: Multiple mailboxes mail@mydomain.tld - my "normal" mail account work@mydomain.tld - work stuff info@mydomain.tld - mailing list / server stuff archive@mydomain.tld - where I move "old" emails from other mailboxes etc. For me, inbox zero achieved nothing. It's housekeeping for no good reason. In conclusion, inbox zero is like 3D TV. A bad idea that failed. Multiple mailboxes is the future. Simon From x at maillard.im Mon Sep 11 21:02:27 2023 From: x at maillard.im (Xavier Maillard) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: <20230911213050.1129e441@jupiter> References: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> <20230911213050.1129e441@jupiter> Message-ID: <2604899-8e3b-8fa-3a84-961b1b18eb@schach.ware.local> Hello, On Mon, 11 Sep 2023, Simon Harrison wrote: > Today, I have a different approach which I find works really well for > me: Multiple mailboxes I see but what's the purpose of storing mails. I experimented so many approaches. In the end, I just get a whole bunch of mails-I-will-never-look-at-again with possibly sensible data (private informations, invoices, etc.) I like the idea of multiple account in the first hand but, I do not really see the added value. > For me, inbox zero achieved nothing. It's housekeeping for no good > reason. Inbox zero for me is synonym of 1) comfort, 2) less stress, 3) more ecological (what's the point of thousands of messages stored on energy-guzzling servers). In 30 years, I can count on the fingers on my two hands the number of times I needed to search/access an archived message, making the whole purpose of storing/archiveing pretty unnecessary. Inbox zero is for me to regain control of my mailbox with good and simple habits. -- Xavier From x at maillard.im Mon Sep 11 21:15:15 2023 From: x at maillard.im (Xavier Maillard) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <12c84ac5-9631-ccad-9bf2-aee48c3c1f94@schach.ware.local> On Mon, 11 Sep 2023, Lucio Chiappetti wrote: > On Mon, 11 Sep 2023, jason-alpine-info@shalott.net wrote: > >> I'm not sure that "Inbox Zero" is really a "strategy" that one practices; > > I've never heard the term, although I practice something not too different. On the contrary, it seems quite far away in fact. It is certainly intended to free the main mailbox but also not to stack emails in a complicated hierarchy of (sub)folders. It defeats the purpose IMO. Especially since you have to compete in ingenuity (colors, complicated settings, etc.) to navigate your emails. > By the way, I have currently 1043 folders grouped in 66 directories (done of > the directories are also grouped in a [local] folder collection. Of these 787 > in 22 directories are of the .Old/Old-yyyy series. I do archive once per > year. Wow ! Thanks for sharing your approcha Lucio but I really think it wouldn't suit me since it demands too much effort and discipline to kepe/to maintain the system -- Xavier From g at gft.nu Tue Sep 12 15:05:18 2023 From: g at gft.nu (George Thuronyi) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Opening attachments Message-ID: Greetings, When I open attachments in Alpine (Windows), the files open in the native program with a temporary name like, "img-PDF-22495.pdf" or img-VND.O-68299.doc" Is there any way to retain the original file name when opening? (Saving the attachment first does retain the file name.) Thanks! George Thuronyi (Pine/Alpine user since the 1990s) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From x at maillard.im Tue Sep 12 21:28:37 2023 From: x at maillard.im (Xavier Maillard) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: <95e967f9-8acb-abe5-b263-fc76afeaa9d9@tatar.hu> References: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> <518f7676-c6a-83f4-1347-158357d09f28@schach.ware.local> <95e967f9-8acb-abe5-b263-fc76afeaa9d9@tatar.hu> Message-ID: Hi, On Mon, 11 Sep 2023, Tatar Kolos wrote: > In a wider context I try to do this: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done I am practicing a simpler approach: the strikethru (a mix of bullet journal and GTD). > A non-empty inbox is basically noise which takes effort on your side to > manage. This is exactly how I feel when facing my mailbox. This is why I am trying to tidy it up -- Xavier From x at maillard.im Tue Sep 12 21:33:04 2023 From: x at maillard.im (Xavier Maillard) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: References: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> Message-ID: <5ee5b138-41b3-c43b-7c72-fa1213ba1632@schach.ware.local> Hi, On Mon, 11 Sep 2023, Matt Ackeret wrote: > On Sat, 9 Sep 2023, Xavier Maillard wrote: >> All is said in the title. Does anyone of you practice the Inbox Zero mail >> strategy inside Alpine ? If so, what tips can you share or what would be the >> best settings you use ? > > Nope. Currently I have 170607 messages in my INBOX. Damn it ! How can you deal with this number ? All of them are read/processed ? Currently my INBOX is ... empty. 0 zero nil message (read or not) I am just trying to decide if I want to maintain an email archive for some valuable emails but then, which email, for what ? I am using Alpine because, hey, I like it and it just doesn't get in my way. I could just use the standard `mail' command if it would connect to imap ;) -- Xavier From slitt at troubleshooters.com Wed Sep 13 10:03:45 2023 From: slitt at troubleshooters.com (Steve Litt) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: <2604899-8e3b-8fa-3a84-961b1b18eb@schach.ware.local> References: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> <20230911213050.1129e441@jupiter> <2604899-8e3b-8fa-3a84-961b1b18eb@schach.ware.local> Message-ID: <20230913130345.4e4f866f@mydesk.domain.cxm> Xavier Maillard said on Tue, 12 Sep 2023 06:02:27 +0200 (CEST) >Hello, > >On Mon, 11 Sep 2023, Simon Harrison wrote: > >> Today, I have a different approach which I find works really well for >> me: Multiple mailboxes > >I see but what's the purpose of storing mails. Yesterday I needed to know how long I'd been doing business with a specific customer, so I went back in my emails and found the earliest correspondence with them, which was 2007. Thanks to my saving most non-spam emails, I can get back in touch with people I haven't spoken to in years. I'm a member of over 20 Linux User Groups, with each group having its own folder, so I can look back and see various things. By storing emails from my friends, I can look back and see what we were talking about a few months ago. Deleting all my email, or even most of my email, would completely uproot the way I conduct my business and personal life. >I experimented so many >approaches. In the end, I just get a whole bunch of >mails-I-will-never-look-at-again with possibly sensible data (private >informations, invoices, etc.) The sensitive data is a valid concern. You could always delete just that info, after storing it somewhere badguys can't get at it. Because usually those emails have info you'll later find necessary, summarily deleting it without archive is a bad idea. > >I like the idea of multiple account in the first hand but, I do not >really see the added value. I do. I have a little over 400 folders in a categorized hierarchy. This makes it easy to find specific emails. >> For me, inbox zero achieved nothing. It's housekeeping for no good >> reason. > >Inbox zero for me is synonym of 1) comfort, 2) less stress, 3) more >ecological (what's the point of thousands of messages stored on >energy-guzzling servers). As far as comfort and stress, it would be even more comfortable and less stressful not to do email at all. As far as ecological, my 70,000+ stored emails fit into 18GB of my 14TB disk on my desktop computer. A hard disk is the world's most efficient file cabinet. I have no emails on my ISP's SMTP server because they're deleted from the server upon download. I keep all my emails on a Dovecot IMAP server on my desktop computer, because few or no email clients can successfully store all those files, and because with my emails on my personal IMAP server I can switch email clients every time one goes bad, or for troubleshooting. The message flow goes as follows: Fetchmail downloads and deletes the email from my ISP's SMTP server, and passes it on to Procmail for categorization. Procmail uses recipes to pass each email to the proper maildir folder on my personal Dovecot IMAP server. My email client is then used as a window into my personal Dovecot server. >In 30 years, I can count on the fingers on my two hands the number of >times I needed to search/access an archived message, making the whole >purpose of storing/archiveing pretty unnecessary. > >Inbox zero is for me to regain control of my mailbox with good and >simple habits. You and I have very different workflow patterns. SteveT Steve Litt Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21 From lucio at lambrate.inaf.it Wed Sep 13 13:17:14 2023 From: lucio at lambrate.inaf.it (Lucio Chiappetti) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: <20230913130345.4e4f866f@mydesk.domain.cxm> References: <20230913130345.4e4f866f@mydesk.domain.cxm> Message-ID: On Wed, 13 Sep 2023, Steve Litt wrote: >> I see but what's the purpose of storing mails. > > Yesterday I needed to know how long I'd been doing business with a > specific customer, so I went back in my emails and found the earliest > correspondence with them, which was 2007. Yes, I often have to keep track of what was done/decided in a particular project a few years ago (or rebuke a colleague who does not remember :-)). Rather recently we wanted to keep a tally of howm many students we had in the lst 20 years, and only the archive of (automaticlly generated) e-mail allowed that. > Deleting all my email, or even most of my email, would completely uproot > the way I conduct my business and personal life. The same for me. Of course I delete any mail which is considered "transient". >> I like the idea of multiple account in the first hand but, I do not >> really see the added value. > > I do. I have a little over 400 folders in a categorized hierarchy. This > makes it easy to find specific emails. Yes, for me multiple accounts would be both an overshoot and a nuisance, but keeping things arranged in directories and subdirectories is extremely useful. For an historical misunderstanding I equated the directories in the topmost level with Alpine "Folder Collections", though they are local. I generally do not access them via that way. > I have no emails on my ISP's SMTP server because they're deleted from > the server upon download. Me too after 24 hrs or so (because of Google's IMAP pecuiliarities) > I keep all my emails on a Dovecot IMAP server on my desktop computer, For me the (UW) IMAP is activated seldom "on request". > Fetchmail downloads and deletes the email from my ISP's SMTP server, > and passes it on to Procmail for categorization. Me too. I used a complex set of procmail rules since long ago. I use fetchmail when local delivery was replaced by Gsuite just in order to preserve all my procmail stuff "running as usual". >> In 30 years, I can count on the fingers on my two hands the number of >> times I needed to search/access an archived message > You and I have very different workflow patterns. Yes, mine is rather similar to Steve's. Also, being an astrophysicist I tend to work for long term (after all the standard astronomical data format, FITS, was initiated in 1979 and is kicking and alive ... it aroused the interest of the Vatican Library to store ditized manuscripts :-) and they thunk for eternity :-)) If you think, before e-mail existed, it was common to archive letters, correspondence of any sort, paper documents, and they (or what survives of them) is object of historical study after centuries ... -- Lucio Chiappetti - INAF/IASF - via Corti 12 - I-20133 Milano (Italy) For more info : http://www.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/personal.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A middle rank researcher at end career is not rich but is in the top 5% of the Italian income tax taxpayers. Does it not sound strange ? From x at maillard.im Wed Sep 13 20:30:48 2023 From: x at maillard.im (Xavier Maillard) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: <20230913130345.4e4f866f@mydesk.domain.cxm> References: <9aabc1ea-5810-6aa0-2de4-3feb8589c53c@schach.ware.local> <20230911213050.1129e441@jupiter> <2604899-8e3b-8fa-3a84-961b1b18eb@schach.ware.local> <20230913130345.4e4f866f@mydesk.domain.cxm> Message-ID: Hi Steve, On Wed, 13 Sep 2023, Steve Litt wrote: > Xavier Maillard said on Tue, 12 Sep 2023 06:02:27 +0200 (CEST) > >> >> On Mon, 11 Sep 2023, Simon Harrison wrote: >> >>> Today, I have a different approach which I find works really well for >>> me: Multiple mailboxes >> >> I see but what's the purpose of storing mails. > > Yesterday I needed to know how long I'd been doing business with a > specific customer, so I went back in my emails and found the earliest > correspondence with them, which was 2007. Thanks to my saving most > non-spam emails, I can get back in touch with people I haven't spoken > to in years. I'm a member of over 20 Linux User Groups, with each group > having its own folder, so I can look back and see various things. By > storing emails from my friends, I can look back and see what we were > talking about a few months ago. Deleting all my email, or even most of > my email, would completely uproot the way I conduct my business and > personal life. Got it. I do it quite differently. Each time I am interacting with people, I just update his "file" with that infos. Once again, that's my approach to doing mails right now. Before that I would happily let the mail inside my INBOX (the client file update would have been updated the same way though) >> In 30 years, I can count on the fingers on my two hands the number of >> times I needed to search/access an archived message, making the whole >> purpose of storing/archiveing pretty unnecessary. >> >> Inbox zero is for me to regain control of my mailbox with good and >> simple habits. > > You and I have very different workflow patterns. Exactly. The most important thing is to do what works for us. -- Xavier From x at maillard.im Wed Sep 13 20:36:41 2023 From: x at maillard.im (Xavier Maillard) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: References: <20230913130345.4e4f866f@mydesk.domain.cxm> Message-ID: On Wed, 13 Sep 2023, Lucio Chiappetti wrote: > Also, being an astrophysicist I tend to work for long term (after all the > standard astronomical data format, FITS, was initiated in 1979 and is kicking > and alive ... it aroused the interest of the Vatican Library to store ditized > manuscripts :-) and they thunk for eternity :-)) Yeah, my domain is quite diffrerent ( security/safety of people and property). Storage is an exception and meets strict rules/processes. Hence my distrust for my own personal mail. Xavier From danm at prime.gushi.org Thu Sep 14 10:37:11 2023 From: danm at prime.gushi.org (Dan Mahoney) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Inbox Zero with Alpine, anyone ? In-Reply-To: References: <20230913130345.4e4f866f@mydesk.domain.cxm> Message-ID: > On Sep 13, 2023, at 8:36 PM, Xavier Maillard wrote: > > > > On Wed, 13 Sep 2023, Lucio Chiappetti wrote: > >> Also, being an astrophysicist I tend to work for long term (after all the standard astronomical data format, FITS, was initiated in 1979 and is kicking and alive ... it aroused the interest of the Vatican Library to store ditized manuscripts :-) and they thunk for eternity :-)) > > Yeah, my domain is quite diffrerent ( security/safety of people and property). Storage is an exception and meets strict rules/processes. Hence my distrust for my own personal mail. This isn?t about ?alpine?s? inbox zero, but about filtering in general, I hope it?s useful. So, my goal isn?t necessarily to have my inbox *empty* but *unread*. I want the ?unread? count to be ?things that are relevant?. Because most mail clients index the inbox more heavily than other boxes, I keep about six months to a year of mail in my inbox. I use alpine to periodically select a date range and save things off to a folder outside of IMAP?s reach. On the inbound side, this means a lot of procmail rules for dumb stuff like receipts, periodic statements, and the like. In my own domain, each sender gets a unique address, which saves me time figuring out sender patterns (and also who sold/leaked/breached my info). Most mailing lists get sorted into their own folders, but a few special low-volume ones, including this one, do not. (I?ve found searching some archives to be a bear, and for some, where I ask a question or two a year, it?s easier to stay subscribed and filter off the content). If JoAnn fabric sends me regular coupons, I want them in a folder I can open and check when I?m in store, but I don?t want to have to mark them as read every time. As another example, things like Facebook notifications go into their own ?social? folder, but I still want to get them because I don?t trust the platform to display them to me with accurate timing information. (Think of them like the RSS feed that Facebook no longer has). When I sometimes do not want to log on that site because I?m taking a break for my own sanity, being able to see the notes but stay off-platform is useful. Alpine is key in this whole process because it?s selection and management tools are more precise than that of most other mailers. Being able to select an exact date range, PLUS a status and move messages to a new folder (while constructing a filtering rule outside of alpine) is the ?once every two months? gardening that keeps things sane. Also, mass-deleting something like ?there was a network outage, you got 127 notifications? messages in a precise fashion all at once is way more concise and easy in Alpine. -Dan From htodd at twofifty.com Thu Sep 14 20:32:13 2023 From: htodd at twofifty.com (Hisashi T Fujinaka) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Did the password caching change recently? Message-ID: <6668afe6-9f3a-cb-e9b7-5071e5845e1e@twofifty.com> I can't remember if something changed recently. I do recall something changing a couple of years ago but in the past couple of weeks I can't seem to enable local password caching any more. Did it move again? -- Hisashi T Fujinaka - htodd@twofifty.com BSEE + BSChem + BAEnglish + MSCS + $2.50 = coffee From x at maillard.im Sat Sep 16 21:02:11 2023 From: x at maillard.im (Xavier Maillard) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Sorting folders ? Message-ID: Hello, I want to clean up an old mail archive stored online (10K+ mails). By default, the folder is displaid and sorted by arrival date. Fine. When pressing $ and choosing F or S, nothing happens. How can I make it display mails respecting my sorting rule choice ? - Xavier From mats at dufberg.se Sun Sep 17 02:43:16 2023 From: mats at dufberg.se (Mats Dufberg) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Sorting folders ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2023-09-17, 06:02 (+0200) Xavier Maillard wrote: > By default, the folder is displaid and sorted by arrival date. Fine. > When pressing $ and choosing F or S, nothing happens. What version of Alpine are you using? I have latest version, 2.26, and for me the sequences "$F" and "$S", respectively, resorts the email messages in the folder. I have not, however, tested if the sorting stays that way after restart. Mats ------------------------------------------------------ | Mats Dufberg | mats@dufberg.se | | Sp?nga kyrkv?g 618 | +46 8 38 48 59 | | SE-16362 Sp?nga, Sweden | +46 70 258 25 88 | ------------------------------------------------------ From x at maillard.im Fri Sep 22 21:07:43 2023 From: x at maillard.im (Xavier Maillard) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Sorting folders ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hello, here is my version string: [x@schach.ware.local ~]$ alpine -v Alpine 2.25 (LNX 592 2021-09-18) built Mon Sep 20 21:07:05 CDT 2021 on z-mp.slackware.lan Alpine was built with the following options: CFLAGS=-O2 -fPIC ./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/man --with-ssl-dir=/usr \ --with-ssl-certs-dir=/etc/ssl/certs --with-c-client-target=slx \ --with-system-pinerc=/etc/pine.conf \ --with-system-fixed-pinerc=/etc/pine.conf.fixed \ --with-passfile=.alpine.passfile --disable-debug --with-debug-level=0 \ --without-tcl --program-prefix= --program-suffix= \ --build=x86_64-slackware-linux build_alias=x86_64-slackware-linux Regards, Xavier From david at lang.hm Sat Sep 23 00:46:50 2023 From: david at lang.hm (David Lang) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Sorting folders ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <975s0o38-5317-7p2p-4645-1pro155r9q7o@ynat.uz> On Sun, 17 Sep 2023, Mats Dufberg wrote: > On 2023-09-17, 06:02 (+0200) Xavier Maillard wrote: > >> By default, the folder is displaid and sorted by arrival date. Fine. >> When pressing $ and choosing F or S, nothing happens. > > What version of Alpine are you using? > > I have latest version, 2.26, and for me the sequences "$F" and "$S", > respectively, resorts the email messages in the folder. I have not, > however, tested if the sorting stays that way after restart. That sorts the display of the messages, but not the actual messages on the remote server. But if you then copy those messages to another folder (and back if needed) they will then be sorted by the new criteria as their 'arrivial' order. David Lang -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Alpine-info mailing list Alpine-info@u.washington.edu http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/alpine-info From x at maillard.im Sat Sep 23 01:09:53 2023 From: x at maillard.im (Xavier Maillard) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Sorting folders ? In-Reply-To: <975s0o38-5317-7p2p-4645-1pro155r9q7o@ynat.uz> References: <975s0o38-5317-7p2p-4645-1pro155r9q7o@ynat.uz> Message-ID: On Sat Sep 23, 2023 at 9:46 AM CEST, David Lang wrote: > On Sun, 17 Sep 2023, Mats Dufberg wrote: > > > On 2023-09-17, 06:02 (+0200) Xavier Maillard wrote: > > > >> By default, the folder is displaid and sorted by arrival date. Fine. > >> When pressing $ and choosing F or S, nothing happens. > > > > What version of Alpine are you using? > > > > I have latest version, 2.26, and for me the sequences "$F" and "$S", > > respectively, resorts the email messages in the folder. I have not, > > however, tested if the sorting stays that way after restart. > > That sorts the display of the messages, but not the actual messages on the Here it even does not "sort the display". It just does nothing. That's why I am asking. - Xavier From robin.listas at telefonica.net Sat Sep 23 01:16:28 2023 From: robin.listas at telefonica.net (Carlos E. R.) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Sorting folders ? In-Reply-To: References: <975s0o38-5317-7p2p-4645-1pro155r9q7o@ynat.uz> Message-ID: On 2023-09-23 10:09, Xavier Maillard wrote: > On Sat Sep 23, 2023 at 9:46 AM CEST, David Lang wrote: >> On Sun, 17 Sep 2023, Mats Dufberg wrote: >> >>> On 2023-09-17, 06:02 (+0200) Xavier Maillard wrote: >>> >>>> By default, the folder is displaid and sorted by arrival date. Fine. >>>> When pressing $ and choosing F or S, nothing happens. >>> >>> What version of Alpine are you using? >>> >>> I have latest version, 2.26, and for me the sequences "$F" and "$S", >>> respectively, resorts the email messages in the folder. I have not, >>> however, tested if the sorting stays that way after restart. >> >> That sorts the display of the messages, but not the actual messages on the > > Here it even does not "sort the display". It just does nothing. That's > why I am asking. I think sorting depends on a capability of the server. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from openSUSE 15.5 (Laicolasse)) -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: OpenPGP_signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 209 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: From x at maillard.im Sat Sep 23 01:40:45 2023 From: x at maillard.im (Xavier Maillard) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Sorting folders ? In-Reply-To: References: <975s0o38-5317-7p2p-4645-1pro155r9q7o@ynat.uz> Message-ID: On Sat Sep 23, 2023 at 10:16 AM CEST, Carlos E. R. wrote: > On 2023-09-23 10:09, Xavier Maillard wrote: > > On Sat Sep 23, 2023 at 9:46 AM CEST, David Lang wrote: > >> On Sun, 17 Sep 2023, Mats Dufberg wrote: > >> > >>> On 2023-09-17, 06:02 (+0200) Xavier Maillard wrote: > >>> > >>>> By default, the folder is displaid and sorted by arrival date. Fine. > >>>> When pressing $ and choosing F or S, nothing happens. > >>> > >>> What version of Alpine are you using? > >>> > >>> I have latest version, 2.26, and for me the sequences "$F" and "$S", > >>> respectively, resorts the email messages in the folder. I have not, > >>> however, tested if the sorting stays that way after restart. > >> > >> That sorts the display of the messages, but not the actual messages on the > > > > Here it even does not "sort the display". It just does nothing. That's > > why I am asking. > I think sorting depends on a capability of the server. Well it is mail.me.com aka iCloud. On my tablet, I just can sort in any order I want so I doubt this is a problem with the server (it does also work with aerc and neomutt) Regards From mats at dufberg.se Sat Sep 23 03:17:10 2023 From: mats at dufberg.se (Mats Dufberg) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Sorting folders ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <360011e9-e8c5-36e8-b024-a9a155400a2b@dufberg.se> I suggest that you install 2.26, the latest version, to see if that helps. Mats On 2023-09-23, 06:07 (+0200) Xavier Maillard wrote: > Hello, > > here is my version string: > > [x@schach.ware.local ~]$ alpine -v > Alpine 2.25 (LNX 592 2021-09-18) built Mon Sep 20 21:07:05 CDT 2021 on z-mp.slackware.lan > Alpine was built with the following options: > CFLAGS=-O2 -fPIC > ./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/man --with-ssl-dir=/usr \ > --with-ssl-certs-dir=/etc/ssl/certs --with-c-client-target=slx \ > --with-system-pinerc=/etc/pine.conf \ > --with-system-fixed-pinerc=/etc/pine.conf.fixed \ > --with-passfile=.alpine.passfile --disable-debug --with-debug-level=0 \ > --without-tcl --program-prefix= --program-suffix= \ > --build=x86_64-slackware-linux build_alias=x86_64-slackware-linux > > Regards, > Xavier > ------------------------------------------------------ | Mats Dufberg | mats@dufberg.se | | Sp?nga kyrkv?g 618 | +46 8 38 48 59 | | SE-16362 Sp?nga, Sweden | +46 70 258 25 88 | ------------------------------------------------------ From geary at acm.org Sat Sep 23 07:19:38 2023 From: geary at acm.org (Mark Geary) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Sorting folders ? In-Reply-To: <360011e9-e8c5-36e8-b024-a9a155400a2b@dufberg.se> References: <360011e9-e8c5-36e8-b024-a9a155400a2b@dufberg.se> Message-ID: On Sep 23, 2023, at 6:17 AM, Mats Dufberg wrote: > I suggest that you install 2.26, the latest version, to see if that helps. I use 2.26 to read iCloud mail and $F and $S don't work for me. It all worked correctly when I read the same messages, more or less, from Prismnet's Dovecot IMAP server, so I just figured it was a problem with Apple. Mark -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Alpine-info mailing list Alpine-info@u.washington.edu http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/alpine-info From alpine.chappa at yandex.com Mon Sep 25 07:10:53 2023 From: alpine.chappa at yandex.com (Eduardo Chappa) Date: Fri Mar 22 14:17:33 2024 Subject: [Alpine-info] Sorting folders ? In-Reply-To: References: <360011e9-e8c5-36e8-b024-a9a155400a2b@dufberg.se> Message-ID: <5bff0500-3d15-2900-12b7-d44dac61b3b2@yandex.com> On Sat, 23 Sep 2023, Mark Geary wrote: > On Sep 23, 2023, at 6:17 AM, Mats Dufberg wrote: > >> I suggest that you install 2.26, the latest version, to see if that helps. > > I use 2.26 to read iCloud mail and $F and $S don't work for me. Can you run Alpine using the command alpine -d imap=4 repeat the issue, quit alpine and post the relevant parts of the file .pine-debug1 here? Thank you. -- Eduardo