Re: Two doubts about POP3 and IMAP

[Charles Cazabon via Mutt-users]

John Hawkinson  wrote:
> [ I want to preface this by saying the recent discussions about POP3 that
> suggest it is a reasonable approach or a viable alternative are quite
> concerning to me, becauase as a practical matter, my understanding is that
> basically "nobody should still be using POP3" and it is a moribund and
> technically inadequate protocol with a lot of problems,

I'm not sure where you read/heard that.  POP3 and IMAP4 are really aimed at
different use cases - POP3 is basically just used to pull messages from a
server when the machine you're on doesn't receive mail by SMTP.  Yes, it can
be used in more complex environments, and can be used as a live store of mail
accessed remotely by a client - but that really isn't its forte.

IMAP4 *is* designed as a live remote store of mail, providing features that a
full MUA needs to be able to provide a reasonable approximation of "normal
email" service when the mailstore is remote.

For what it's designed to do, POP3 is still fully capable of serving those
needs.  "No one should be using POP3" is a religious argument, not a technical
one.

If POP3 serves your needs, use it.  If it doesn't, or you don't want to, use
IMAP4.  But you needn't be "concerned" about other people using POP3 - it's a
perfectly valid thing to do.

Charles
-- 
---
Charles Cazabon
GPL'ed software available at:   http://pyropus.ca/software/
---

Re: [help] Disabling email notification not working

[Kurt Hackenberg]

On Sun, Sep 11, 2022 at 04:45:55PM -0400, Kurt Hackenberg wrote:


This example



Woops. I missed a character in copy-paste, and should have given a web 
reference anyway:

Re: [help] Disabling email notification not working

[Kurt Hackenberg]

On Sun, Sep 11, 2022 at 06:28:30PM +, Charles via Mutt-users wrote:


set folder = imap://...
set spoolfile = imap://.../INBOX

mailboxes -nonotify -nopoll $spoolfile
set timeout = 10
set mail_check = 600
set new_mail_command = "/bin/mpv /noise.mp3"


With this setup, I should not get a notification for a new email, yet, I do.


I don't know exactly what happens there, but two things look 
questionable: $folder and $spoolfile.


According to the Mutt manual, $folder is the pathname of a local 
directory, default ~/Mail, that contains your local mailboxes. That 
seems to be different from what Mutt means by "a folder": a set of 
messages, like an mbox file, a maildir, or an IMAP folder. (A "mailbox" 
is a folder that can receive new incoming mail.) One purpose of $folder 
-- maybe the only purpose -- is to give a value for the shortcut "+" or 
"=", used in pathnames of folders and mailboxes.


This example

shows $folder generalized to mean the top of an IMAP tree, but again 
it's a place where multiple folders/mailboxes live. Note that example 
sets $folder to imap://host1/, not imap://host1/INBOX. Possibly that 
example sets it just to use the shortcut "+".


$spoolfile, another pathname (default empty string) seems to have 
originally been about the old original Unix mechanism for delivering 
mail into local files, back when every Unix machine where people read 
mail, ran an MTA. The MTA delivered incoming mail for Unix user "fred" 
into, say, /var/mail/fred, an mbox file. When Fred ran a mail reader, 
it moved his new mail from that system spool file to another mbox file 
in his home directory, default ~/mbox. The Mutt variable $spoolfile, 
according to the manual, is a way to specify a non-default location of 
that system spool file. Maybe $spoolfile has been generalized from that 
original meaning to mean something with IMAP; possibly setting 
$spoolfile implies polling.


You might try not setting either of those Mutt variables, and see what 
happens.

Re: Two doubts about POP3 and IMAP

[John Hawkinson]

[ I want to preface this by saying the recent discussions about POP3 that 
suggest it is a reasonable approach or a viable alternative are quite 
concerning to me, becauase as a practical matter, my understanding is that 
basically "nobody should still be using POP3" and it is a moribund and 
technically inadequate protocol with a lot of problems, and you are much better 
off figuring whatever is necessary to make IMAP work in your circumstance. But 
that's not this thread. And also that it's a potentially religious viewpoint 
and may well be wrong, and I personally have plenty of reasons to be unhappy 
with IMAP. ]

meine's explanation is not satisfactory and does not make sense to me.

I think the correct explanation is that under most circumstances, the default 
timeouts combined with the IMAP IDLE command and IMAP NOTIFY extension make it 
such that clients should not need to poll IMAP servers for new mail and so a 
user should not have to initiate such a manual poll.

But I think many of us do not live in that reality. I indeed have

bind index \` imap-fetch-mail

in my .muttrc and I use it with some regularity, although I am not always 
satisfied with the results.

--
jh...@alum.mit.edu
John Hawkinson


meine  wrote on Sun, 11 Sep 2022
at 15:16:11 EDT in :

> > Why isn't there a default binding for the "imap-fetch-mail" function,
> > just like 'G' for POP3? I know I can assign it, but was curious
> 
> AFAIK POP3 needs to be triggered with 'G' to fetch newe mails and IMAP
> just reads the mailserver for all mails in your boxes. IMAP is to have
> all emails from wherever you access the account, so you don't have to
> use some fetch command because it is already done at access.

Re: Two doubts about POP3 and IMAP

[meine]

> Why isn't there a default binding for the "imap-fetch-mail" function,
> just like 'G' for POP3? I know I can assign it, but was curious

AFAIK POP3 needs to be triggered with 'G' to fetch newe mails and IMAP
just reads the mailserver for all mails in your boxes. IMAP is to have
all emails from wherever you access the account, so you don't have to
use some fetch command because it is already done at access.

//meine

[help] Disabling email notification not working

[Charles via Mutt-users]

Hello,

> set folder = imap://...
> set spoolfile = imap://.../INBOX
>
> mailboxes -nonotify -nopoll $spoolfile
> set timeout = 10
> set mail_check = 600
> set new_mail_command = "/bin/mpv /noise.mp3"

With this setup, I should not get a notification for a new email, yet, I do.
I receive a notification about 20 seconds after I sent myself an email with 
another email address. With mail_check, I should get the notification only 
after 10 minutes. How come?
And with -nonotify and -nopoll, I should not even get the notification.
I tried unmailboxes $spoolfile and I still get the notification and hear 
noise.mp3.
I tried running mutt with the -n option, still doesn't work. (I have mutt 2.2.7)
And and I do get "Reading configuration file '~/.mutt.rc'" in the debug log 
file.

Hope somebody has a little time to help me out.

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