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ggelln
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
Posts: 98
Location: Montreal Quebec
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 Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 3:50 am Post subject: maildir rotate? or How do I automate moving old messages? |
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I use mutt.
I use maildir format.
I am not tremendously smrt at mail. (though I am willing to learn, and read, that is links are welcome!)
basically what I want is a method for sorting mail in my 'inbox' after
a certain amount of time? I have no idea how to go about this with
mutt/procmail etc (not even sure how to search for the answer!)
any ideas ?
Gabriel |
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fcs
n00b
Joined: 01 Apr 2004
Posts: 14
Location: USA
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| Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 3:14 am Post subject: |
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The nice thing about maildir format (well, one of many  ) is that each message is an individual file, so you can use standard UNIX tools.
For example, to move everything older than 2 weeks in your Inbox to the "Old Mail" folder, do something like;
| Code: | | $ find $HOME/.maildir/{cur,new} -type f \! -name '.*' -mtime +14 -print0 | xargs -0ri mv \{\} "$HOME/.maildir/.Old Mail/cur" |
This assumes, of course, that the "Old Mail" folder exits. I don't use mutt, but I assume it can create maildir folders. Of course, you can put the messages anywhere else too. Each file is a separate, unencoded mail message. Google for "maildir format" for details.
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ggelln
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
Posts: 98
Location: Montreal Quebec
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| Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 5:08 am Post subject: |
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thanks, I like the solution!
I guess I didn't really need to use mutt
Gabriel |
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rfujimoto
Apprentice
Joined: 22 Mar 2004
Posts: 195
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| Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 5:18 am Post subject: |
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To add to that, you could put a cron job in every 4 months to do this:
tar -cjf $(date +%w.%y).mail.tar.bz2 $HOME/.maildir/.Old Mail/cur
That way you can archive mail for as long as you like. |
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nevynxxx
Veteran
Joined: 12 Nov 2003
Posts: 1123
Location: Manchester - UK
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| Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 12:26 pm Post subject: |
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| rfujimoto wrote: | To add to that, you could put a cron job in every 4 months to do this:
tar -cjf $(date +%w.%y).mail.tar.bz2 $HOME/.maildir/.Old Mail/cur
That way you can archive mail for as long as you like. |
Nice idea, why 4 months though? seems a bit arbitary. Is there a way with tar to add files to an existing archive? If so I'd have 2 cron jobs, one monthly that rotates the archives, and one nightly (say 4am?) that adds all mail into the "current" archive. The nightly one would also remove all mail over a month old. That should be fairly good.
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ggelln
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
Posts: 98
Location: Montreal Quebec
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| Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 1:36 pm Post subject: |
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man gentoo forums are great!
ask a random questions, get lots-o-fun answers . . . well off to make a cron job
Gabriel |
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nevynxxx
Veteran
Joined: 12 Nov 2003
Posts: 1123
Location: Manchester - UK
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| Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 1:47 pm Post subject: |
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| ggelln wrote: | man gentoo forums are great!
ask a random questions, get lots-o-fun answers . . . well off to make a cron job
Gabriel |
careful though, sometimes those fun answers lead to hacking ebuilds, and its not far from there to hacking source, and once you start that you see progs that need to be made, and then you are really in trouble.
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fcs
n00b
Joined: 01 Apr 2004
Posts: 14
Location: USA
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| Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 2:26 pm Post subject: |
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| nevynxxx wrote: | | Is there a way with tar to add files to an existing archive? |
| Code: | $ man tar
<snip>
FUNCTION LETTERS
One of the following options must be used:
<snip>
-r, --append
append files to the end of an archive
<snip>
-u, --update
only append files that are newer than copy in archive
<snip>
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So something like:
| Code: |
$ tar -ujf $HOME/mail.tar.bz2 $HOME/.maildir/{cur,new}
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should do it.
Note: if you use an IMAP mailreader you probably have a bunch of other folders in your maildir, use ls -a to see them, as their names all start with a '.'. Each of these subfolders have tmp, new, and cur directories as well. If you have multiple levels of folders in your mail client '.' is used as the path seperator, so for example I have:
| Code: | $ ls -aFC ~/.maildir
<snip>
.Lists/
.Lists.Gentoo/
.Lists.OpenIB/
<snip>
cur/
new/
tmp/
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| nevynxxx wrote: | | ggelln wrote: | man gentoo forums are great!
ask a random questions, get lots-o-fun answers . . . well off to make a cron job
Gabriel |
careful though, sometimes those fun answers lead to hacking ebuilds, and its not far from there to hacking source, and once you start that you see progs that need to be made, and then you are really in trouble. |
But that's the open-source way! 
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nevynxxx
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Joined: 12 Nov 2003
Posts: 1123
Location: Manchester - UK
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| Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 2:31 pm Post subject: |
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| fcs wrote: | <snip>
</snip> |
cool thanks, I'll look at that later and run it into a script to pick up all my subdir's
| fcs wrote: |
But that's the open-source way! |
Hehe your telling me! I meant it in a humourous way really, then again, I also just started ripping the gnome specific stuff from an app in order to make it cli.....
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fcs
n00b
Joined: 01 Apr 2004
Posts: 14
Location: USA
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| Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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| nevynxxx wrote: | | fcs wrote: | | But that's the open-source way! |
Hehe your telling me! I meant it in a humourous way really, then again, I also just started ripping the gnome specific stuff from an app in order to make it cli..... |
So did I, thus the grin . Besides, I have a soft spot in my heart for anyone willing to rip out a GUI and replace it with something usable! 
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