Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
Hi Cameron, On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 06:21:31PM +1100, Cameron Simpson wrote: For me this is all theoretical so far as I have not had time. But it is a real issue I need to address, and I'd like to hear of your efforts if you try this route. I have been doing this for some years now, with great success I might add. I use a combination of OfflineIMAP[1] (syncing over IMAP), Notmuch[2] (indexing), and Mutt-kz[3] (a mutt fork with notmuch support). This is my chain: - Sync with OfflineIMAP - Call notmuch new from OfflineIMAP postsynchook - Read and send emails with Mutt-kz Notmuch offers a few pre and post hooks, I address my regular tagging needs in these hooks. The rest I do while reading the emails. Easy enough :). I also use a (notmuch) search based address book[4] with Mutt. In fact, the latest notmuch release also added a notmuch-address command. Let me know if you are interested, I can share more details. Cheers, Footnotes: [1] http://offlineimap.org/ [2] http://notmuchmail.org/ [3] http://kzak.redcrew.org/doku.php?id=mutt:start [4] https://github.com/domo141/nottoomuch -- Suvayu Open source is the future. It sets us free.
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 07:07:10AM +, John Long wrote: I don't see how IMAP helps. What exactly is the difference in terms of how you read mail and where the apps run as opposed to POP? The only thing IMAP does it make you rely on a remote mail server. I never use IMAP unless they don't serve POP. I know one mail provider that doesn't honor POP delete requests so to avoid leaving 100,000 emails on their server that I can't delete I use IMAP with them. Everywhere else, POP. I'd rather rely on my own email storage. I wondered if, when using IMAP, mutt will store the temporary HTML for passing to Firefox on the local machine rather than the remote machine. One would expect it to somehow. If I understood you then yes, but the local machine as far as mutt is concerned is the machine where mutt is running, not where you are running. All mutt's working data is where mutt runs, as in all normal apps. Exactly. I'm sitting using my laptop in France (for example) and I run mutt on the laptop using IMAP to access the E-Mails on my mail server machine at home. So, when I use 'v' to view an HTML E-Mail it stores the file in /tmp on the laptop and points my laptop browser at it to view it? This was really my original question! :-) OK, it has to download the file so won't be instant but at least it works without any extra configuration or commands (except the extra complexity, if any, of using IMAP). No, as I said I just tried it and it doesn't work because Firefox is too clever and uses the local Firefox rather than the remote one so the file is in the wrong place. Firefox is POS technology, but depending on the version you can start it not to use your local/running instance. try firefox --no-remote and look around on the web if that doesn't do it. I have run into this several times with network firefox etc and I have it working. Yes, I've done it in the past when I was at work and really needed to view something that was only accessible from the browser on my home machine. Even across a fairly quick UK only internet connection it was horrendously slow. -- Chris Green
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 06:21:31PM +1100, Cameron Simpson wrote: On 08Dec2014 22:04, Chris Green c...@isbd.net wrote: Doesn't anyone use IMAP? I must admit when I tried it (a few times over the years, but not very recently) it never felt quite as easy and transparent as using mutt on a local mail spool. I would advocate trying offlineimap. I am a huge fan of having one's mail local to the machine for all the reasons you have outlined. [snip] Well, looking at offlineimap has lead me to notmuch as well which has got me thinking down those lines too! :-) However, for me, moving to offlineimap involves quite a bit of reconfiguration work as I currently use mbox and I don't have an IMAP server running on the machine where the E-Mails initially get delivered. So I just need to decide which of many possible routes will serve me best. -- Chris Green
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 10:33:05AM +, Chris Green wrote: On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 06:21:31PM +1100, Cameron Simpson wrote: On 08Dec2014 22:04, Chris Green c...@isbd.net wrote: Doesn't anyone use IMAP? I must admit when I tried it (a few times over the years, but not very recently) it never felt quite as easy and transparent as using mutt on a local mail spool. I would advocate trying offlineimap. I am a huge fan of having one's mail local to the machine for all the reasons you have outlined. [snip] Well, looking at offlineimap has lead me to notmuch as well which has got me thinking down those lines too! :-) However, for me, moving to offlineimap involves quite a bit of reconfiguration work as I currently use mbox and I don't have an IMAP server running on the machine where the E-Mails initially get delivered. So I just need to decide which of many possible routes will serve me best. If we all misunderstood and you have multiple instances of mutt running and want to be able to access your mail from any of them then use POP and leave the email on the server. Are you forced to use IMAP? /jl -- ASCII ribbon campaign ( ) Powered by Lemote Fuloong against HTML e-mail X Loongson MIPS and OpenBSD and proprietary/ \http://www.mutt.org attachments / \ Code Blue or Go Home! Encrypted email preferred PGP Key 2048R/DA65BC04
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 10:11:53AM +, Chris Green wrote: On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 07:07:10AM +, John Long wrote: I don't see how IMAP helps. What exactly is the difference in terms of how you read mail and where the apps run as opposed to POP? The only thing IMAP does it make you rely on a remote mail server. I never use IMAP unless they don't serve POP. I know one mail provider that doesn't honor POP delete requests so to avoid leaving 100,000 emails on their server that I can't delete I use IMAP with them. Everywhere else, POP. I'd rather rely on my own email storage. I wondered if, when using IMAP, mutt will store the temporary HTML for passing to Firefox on the local machine rather than the remote machine. One would expect it to somehow. This has nothing to do with IMAP. It has to do with how apps work. I'll clarify within my own comments: If I understood you then yes, but the local machine as far as mutt is concerned is the machine where mutt is running [your remote system], not where you are running [your ssh session from, your local system]. All mutt's working data is where mutt runs, as in all normal apps. Exactly. I'm sitting using my laptop in France (for example) and I run mutt on the laptop using IMAP to access the E-Mails on my mail server machine at home. Are you saying you can host a mail server but you can't understand the difference between running Mutt on a local or remote system? That's difficult to fathom. So, when I use 'v' to view an HTML E-Mail it stores the file in /tmp on the laptop and points my laptop browser at it to view it? Check and see? This was really my original question! :-) If so then you had no question at all. It's obvious Mutt will save the file on the system where mutt is running. It cannot work any other way and this has absolutely nothing to do with IMAP or POP. I believe everyone understood from the beginning of this thread you were ssh-ing to a remote box and running Mutt on the remote machine. All the answers until now have been based on that. OK, it has to download the file so won't be instant but at least it works without any extra configuration or commands (except the extra complexity, if any, of using IMAP). I must have missed a few posts. This seems out of context. No, as I said I just tried it and it doesn't work because Firefox is too clever and uses the local Firefox rather than the remote one so the file is in the wrong place. Firefox is POS technology, but depending on the version you can start it not to use your local/running instance. try firefox --no-remote and look around on the web if that doesn't do it. I have run into this several times with network firefox etc and I have it working. Yes, I've done it in the past when I was at work and really needed to view something that was only accessible from the browser on my home machine. Even across a fairly quick UK only internet connection it was horrendously slow. If you think that's slow then how do you think an SSH filesystem over the same connection will work? Sounds like a terribly bad idea. /jl -- ASCII ribbon campaign ( ) Powered by Lemote Fuloong against HTML e-mail X Loongson MIPS and OpenBSD and proprietary/ \http://www.mutt.org attachments / \ Code Blue or Go Home! Encrypted email preferred PGP Key 2048R/DA65BC04
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 10:56:04AM +, John Long wrote: If I understood you then yes, but the local machine as far as mutt is concerned is the machine where mutt is running [your remote system], not where you are running [your ssh session from, your local system]. All mutt's working data is where mutt runs, as in all normal apps. Exactly. I'm sitting using my laptop in France (for example) and I run mutt on the laptop using IMAP to access the E-Mails on my mail server machine at home. Are you saying you can host a mail server but you can't understand the difference between running Mutt on a local or remote system? That's difficult to fathom. So, when I use 'v' to view an HTML E-Mail it stores the file in /tmp on the laptop and points my laptop browser at it to view it? Check and see? That's not so easy! I don't currently have an IMAP server for mutt to connect to, hence This was really my original question! :-) If so then you had no question at all. It's obvious Mutt will save the file on the system where mutt is running. It cannot work any other way and this has absolutely nothing to do with IMAP or POP. It could perfectly well use IMAP and save the file somewhere in the IMAP hierarchy on the remote system. I believe everyone understood from the beginning of this thread you were ssh-ing to a remote box and running Mutt on the remote machine. All the answers until now have been based on that. Yes, and using IMAP is an *alternative* approach to reading E-Mail remotely. OK, it has to download the file so won't be instant but at least it works without any extra configuration or commands (except the extra complexity, if any, of using IMAP). I must have missed a few posts. This seems out of context. I'm trying to compare the convenience/ease of doing what I do at the moment (ssh to remote, run mutt there) and running mutt on the local laptop and using IMAP. It seems as if IMAP will overcome a couple of the niggles of ssh/mutt but I'm not sure if it's worth the extra hassle of running an IMAP server and putting up with the extra work (not much but there is a bit) of using mutt with IMAP. No, as I said I just tried it and it doesn't work because Firefox is too clever and uses the local Firefox rather than the remote one so the file is in the wrong place. Firefox is POS technology, but depending on the version you can start it not to use your local/running instance. try firefox --no-remote and look around on the web if that doesn't do it. I have run into this several times with network firefox etc and I have it working. Yes, I've done it in the past when I was at work and really needed to view something that was only accessible from the browser on my home machine. Even across a fairly quick UK only internet connection it was horrendously slow. If you think that's slow then how do you think an SSH filesystem over the same connection will work? Sounds like a terribly bad idea. The trouble is that Firefox via X transfers vast amounts of data to continuously update the screen, there's no attempt at efficiency. The ssh filesystem won't have to transfer anything like the same amoount of data. -- Chris Green
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 10:57:33AM +, John Long wrote: On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 10:33:05AM +, Chris Green wrote: On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 06:21:31PM +1100, Cameron Simpson wrote: On 08Dec2014 22:04, Chris Green c...@isbd.net wrote: Doesn't anyone use IMAP? I must admit when I tried it (a few times over the years, but not very recently) it never felt quite as easy and transparent as using mutt on a local mail spool. I would advocate trying offlineimap. I am a huge fan of having one's mail local to the machine for all the reasons you have outlined. [snip] Well, looking at offlineimap has lead me to notmuch as well which has got me thinking down those lines too! :-) However, for me, moving to offlineimap involves quite a bit of reconfiguration work as I currently use mbox and I don't have an IMAP server running on the machine where the E-Mails initially get delivered. So I just need to decide which of many possible routes will serve me best. If we all misunderstood and you have multiple instances of mutt running and want to be able to access your mail from any of them then use POP and leave the email on the server. Are you forced to use IMAP? I currently read my E-Mails (at different times, not simultaneously) using mutt on:- The desktop Linux system which is also where Postfix runs to receive my E-Mail. My laptop running Linux, sometimes on the LAN with the above desktop, sometimes out and about connected by someone's home WiFi or a 3G connection. Rarely, but occasionally, on someone else's system. The reason I'd use IMAP rather than POP3 is that I have mail filtering running on the desktop server. There's a custom script that delivers mailing list E-Mails (in particular) to separate mailboxes. I want to be able to see these when I read my E-Mail remotely. Thus I'd simply do everything remotely using IMAP, not store anything on the laptop. -- Chris Green
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP - my conclusion/solution
Thanks everyone for all the ideas and feedback. I *think* I have a solution that will work for me. I'll change the default mutt temporary directory to something that I can mount easily on the laptop using sshfs, as long as this has a unique name that can be the same on the desktop server and on the laptop then files viewed using mutt should be in the 'right place' on both systems. I just need to write a wrapper to mount and unmount the directory when mutt is run on the laptop (or I could just mount it whenever I connect I suppose). This requires minimal reconfiguration - no IMAP server, no changes to my mailbox format - and fixes my current niggles (I think/hope!). Again, thank you everyone for all your help. -- Chris Green
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 11:36:48AM +, Chris Green wrote: On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 10:56:04AM +, John Long wrote: If I understood you then yes, but the local machine as far as mutt is concerned is the machine where mutt is running [your remote system], not where you are running [your ssh session from, your local system]. All mutt's working data is where mutt runs, as in all normal apps. Exactly. I'm sitting using my laptop in France (for example) and I run mutt on the laptop using IMAP to access the E-Mails on my mail server machine at home. Are you saying you can host a mail server but you can't understand the difference between running Mutt on a local or remote system? That's difficult to fathom. So, when I use 'v' to view an HTML E-Mail it stores the file in /tmp on the laptop and points my laptop browser at it to view it? Check and see? That's not so easy! I don't currently have an IMAP server for mutt to connect to, hence This was really my original question! :-) If so then you had no question at all. It's obvious Mutt will save the file on the system where mutt is running. It cannot work any other way and this has absolutely nothing to do with IMAP or POP. It could perfectly well use IMAP and save the file somewhere in the IMAP hierarchy on the remote system. No, this is not the way Mutt works. It has nothing to do with IMAP or POP. The only practical difference is with IMAP what's on the server is synced with your client. If you delete it, it's deleted on the server. With POP you can intentionally leave things on the server or delete them when read. I believe everyone understood from the beginning of this thread you were ssh-ing to a remote box and running Mutt on the remote machine. All the answers until now have been based on that. Yes, and using IMAP is an *alternative* approach to reading E-Mail remotely. No it is not. It is a mail protocol. OK, it has to download the file so won't be instant but at least it works without any extra configuration or commands (except the extra complexity, if any, of using IMAP). I must have missed a few posts. This seems out of context. I'm trying to compare the convenience/ease of doing what I do at the moment (ssh to remote, run mutt there) and running mutt on the local laptop and using IMAP. It doesn't matter whether you use IMAP or POP. It matters where mutt runs. If you think that's slow then how do you think an SSH filesystem over the same connection will work? Sounds like a terribly bad idea. The trouble is that Firefox via X transfers vast amounts of data to continuously update the screen, there's no attempt at efficiency. The ssh filesystem won't have to transfer anything like the same amoount of data. That's not the point. What is more important to you, having a web page rendered properly or having your file system in good shape? Anyway this whole thing is unnecessary. /jl -- ASCII ribbon campaign ( ) Powered by Lemote Fuloong against HTML e-mail X Loongson MIPS and OpenBSD and proprietary/ \http://www.mutt.org attachments / \ Code Blue or Go Home! Encrypted email preferred PGP Key 2048R/DA65BC04
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 11:42:49AM +, Chris Green wrote: If we all misunderstood and you have multiple instances of mutt running and want to be able to access your mail from any of them then use POP and leave the email on the server. Are you forced to use IMAP? I currently read my E-Mails (at different times, not simultaneously) using mutt on:- The desktop Linux system which is also where Postfix runs to receive my E-Mail. My laptop running Linux, sometimes on the LAN with the above desktop, sometimes out and about connected by someone's home WiFi or a 3G connection. Rarely, but occasionally, on someone else's system. The reason I'd use IMAP rather than POP3 is that I have mail filtering running on the desktop server. There's a custom script that delivers mailing list E-Mails (in particular) to separate mailboxes. I want to be able to see these when I read my E-Mail remotely. Thus I'd simply do everything remotely using IMAP, not store anything on the laptop. If you paint yourself into a corner by not understanding what you are doing it is much harder for anybody to answer your questions. It seems you are hell-bent on misunderstanding things and have already decided on an incorrect unnecessarily, complicated conclusion. Mail filtering works independent of POP or IMAP. Delivery to spool is independent of POP or IMAP. The only practical difference between POP and IMAP is at the client level. IMAP syncs in real time. If you delete a message in IMAP it is gone from the server. If you use POP you can set things up so that messages are left on the server for you to access from other clients. /jl -- ASCII ribbon campaign ( ) Powered by Lemote Fuloong against HTML e-mail X Loongson MIPS and OpenBSD and proprietary/ \http://www.mutt.org attachments / \ Code Blue or Go Home! Encrypted email preferred PGP Key 2048R/DA65BC04
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 03:19:55PM +, Chris Green wrote: At the moment to access my mail remotely I ssh into the server and run mutt. This works well in general but there are some disadvantages, in particular the 'v' command to access and view HTML, PDF and other [...] So, I'm wondering if using IMAP would make my life easier. I would run Dovecot I expect. If I do this do things become more transparent to a remote mutt? Just as a data point I'll note that I use both methods on a daily basis. As you guessed, aside from the attachment situation there isn't much difference. At home I use ssh and run mutt on my mail server. When I have to access attachments I use sshfs to access my homedir on the server. At work I use IMAP (actually IMAPS) because the IT department uses Microsoft Exchange as their mail server. There are some annoying issues with how Exchange's IMAP module sometimes handles TNEF messages sent by Outlook users, but that's something you wouldn't need to deal with if you're running your IMAP server on Linux. In the IMAP situation I can still edit messages in my inbox, link/unlink threads, move messages between folders including back and forth between IMAP folders and local maildir directories, and so on. One case where IMAP might be a downside is if you often have to search the message bodies, since I think they aren't cached on the mutt side and will have to be retrieved over IMAP each time you do a search. The headers do get cached by mutt. -Dave Dodge/dodo...@dododge.net
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 03:38:18PM +, Chris Green wrote: On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 10:30:46AM -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote: * Chris Green c...@isbd.net [12-08-14 10:21]: E.g. if I want to view an HTML E-Mail in Firefox (default browser) instead of within mutt (using lynx) can I just do 'v' followed by selecting the HTML attachment as I would when running mutt locally on the machine where mail is hosted? I work somewhat similarily. I store all mail on my local box and maintain a tmux session which I access remotely via ssh -X. Yes, that's the alternative (to IMAP) really. However a lot of my remote locations are very remote and have slow connections, running a browser remotely would be unusably slow and similarly NFS would be messy and insecure. You could also look at tools like offlineimap or imapsync https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/OfflineIMAP
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 10:04:26PM +, Chris Green wrote: Hello, Chris, What I do is that at work, I mount my home mail folder using sshfs. That way, I can use my local copies of mutt, xpdf, etc. With large messages, it can get slow, sometimes, but it does save some time. Yes, I guess that's one way of doing it, not too difficult to automate using a script. I could simply mount my ~/.mutt and my ~/Mail directories and run mutt on the laptop (which is what I'm always using when away from home). Slow with mbox I fear though, I might have to change to Maildir to make it usable. Doesn't anyone use IMAP? I must admit when I tried it (a few times over the years, but not very recently) it never felt quite as easy and transparent as using mutt on a local mail spool. My setup consists on downloading all my email via getmail onto my local machine, with regular updates via cron, and posting via msmtpqueue. It harkens back to a time when internet access wasn't always a given for me, and I like how it works now, so... -- Eduardo Alvarez Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, moriturus sum -- Rincewind The Wizzard pgpGn7F97azY3.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On 09Dec2014 10:33, Chris Green c...@isbd.net wrote: On Tue, Dec 09, 2014 at 06:21:31PM +1100, Cameron Simpson wrote: On 08Dec2014 22:04, Chris Green c...@isbd.net wrote: Doesn't anyone use IMAP? I must admit when I tried it (a few times over the years, but not very recently) it never felt quite as easy and transparent as using mutt on a local mail spool. I would advocate trying offlineimap. I am a huge fan of having one's mail local to the machine for all the reasons you have outlined. [snip] Well, looking at offlineimap has lead me to notmuch as well which has got me thinking down those lines too! :-) However, for me, moving to offlineimap involves quite a bit of reconfiguration work as I currently use mbox and I don't have an IMAP server running on the machine where the E-Mails initially get delivered. You can probably install dovecot on the main machine easily. If the remote machine is personal (you desktop machine, yes?) you could configure its IMAP and POP services to listen only on localhost for security; use an ssh port forward to gain remote access to them. If you choose offlineimap for bidirectional mirroring then you have the maildir conversion issue to consider. Note that maildirs do take more disc space due to the separation of messages into individual files. My personal practice is presently to use maildirs for most live folders and to use mbox for archival folders. Offlineimap does not need to mirror all your folders; it can manage an arbitrary subset. Then the primary change is to tell dovecot to use maildirs (and to convert your mail folders). For dovecot, the dovecot.conf file wants the mail_location setting configured, for example: mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir which says to use maildir and to look for the user's folders in ~/Maildir. Mutt will cope automatically for existing folders, though you may want to tell it to make maildirs by default for new folders: set mbox_type=maildir Then there's mbox to maildir conversion. Tedious. There are ways to automate that. The simplest may to script mutt itself. Have a look at my mboxify script: https://bitbucket.org/cameron_simpson/css/src/tip/bin/mboxify which I am using to progressively turn my archive folders into mboxes, and reverse it. It has a bunch of checks, but you could pull out the core invocation of mutt towards the bottom of the script and invert it to convert an mbox into a maildir. Cheers, Cameron Simpson c...@zip.com.au Your reality is lies and balderdash, and I'm glad to say that I have no grasp of it. - Baron Munchausen
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
* Chris Green c...@isbd.net [12-08-14 10:21]: I have been using mutt for many, many years with a local (Unix style) mail spool. Mail is delivered to my system by SMTP (postfix locally). At the moment to access my mail remotely I ssh into the server and run mutt. This works well in general but there are some disadvantages, in particular the 'v' command to access and view HTML, PDF and other graphical attachments doesn't work because, of course, there's no GUI access to the machine where I'm reading the mail. It's also a bit annoying simply saving attachments and then realising they're on the remote machine. So, I'm wondering if using IMAP would make my life easier. I would run Dovecot I expect. If I do this do things become more transparent to a remote mutt? E.g. if I want to view an HTML E-Mail in Firefox (default browser) instead of within mutt (using lynx) can I just do 'v' followed by selecting the HTML attachment as I would when running mutt locally on the machine where mail is hosted? I work somewhat similarily. I store all mail on my local box and maintain a tmux session which I access remotely via ssh -X. I can view html using the home machine's browser remotely but it is quite slow due to connection speed at most hotels. I prefer to view those very few particular html files by krusader/dolphin fish and transfer to local machine, then employe browser on my laptop. When using my desktop which is different than mail storage location, I dump the html via nfs to a file local to my desktop and view using my desktop's browser. hth, -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.orgopenSUSE Community Memberfacebook/ptilopteri http://wahoo.no-ip.orgPhoto Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535@ http://linuxcounter.net
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 10:30:46AM -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote: * Chris Green c...@isbd.net [12-08-14 10:21]: I have been using mutt for many, many years with a local (Unix style) mail spool. Mail is delivered to my system by SMTP (postfix locally). At the moment to access my mail remotely I ssh into the server and run mutt. This works well in general but there are some disadvantages, in particular the 'v' command to access and view HTML, PDF and other graphical attachments doesn't work because, of course, there's no GUI access to the machine where I'm reading the mail. It's also a bit annoying simply saving attachments and then realising they're on the remote machine. So, I'm wondering if using IMAP would make my life easier. I would run Dovecot I expect. If I do this do things become more transparent to a remote mutt? E.g. if I want to view an HTML E-Mail in Firefox (default browser) instead of within mutt (using lynx) can I just do 'v' followed by selecting the HTML attachment as I would when running mutt locally on the machine where mail is hosted? I work somewhat similarily. I store all mail on my local box and maintain a tmux session which I access remotely via ssh -X. I can view html using the home machine's browser remotely but it is quite slow due to connection speed at most hotels. I prefer to view those very few particular html files by krusader/dolphin fish and transfer to local machine, then employe browser on my laptop. When using my desktop which is different than mail storage location, I dump the html via nfs to a file local to my desktop and view using my desktop's browser. Yes, that's the alternative (to IMAP) really. However a lot of my remote locations are very remote and have slow connections, running a browser remotely would be unusably slow and similarly NFS would be messy and insecure. -- Chris Green
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
* Chris Green c...@isbd.net [12-08-14 10:40]: On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 10:30:46AM -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote: * Chris Green c...@isbd.net [12-08-14 10:21]: I have been using mutt for many, many years with a local (Unix style) mail spool. Mail is delivered to my system by SMTP (postfix locally). At the moment to access my mail remotely I ssh into the server and run mutt. This works well in general but there are some disadvantages, in particular the 'v' command to access and view HTML, PDF and other graphical attachments doesn't work because, of course, there's no GUI access to the machine where I'm reading the mail. It's also a bit annoying simply saving attachments and then realising they're on the remote machine. So, I'm wondering if using IMAP would make my life easier. I would run Dovecot I expect. If I do this do things become more transparent to a remote mutt? E.g. if I want to view an HTML E-Mail in Firefox (default browser) instead of within mutt (using lynx) can I just do 'v' followed by selecting the HTML attachment as I would when running mutt locally on the machine where mail is hosted? I work somewhat similarily. I store all mail on my local box and maintain a tmux session which I access remotely via ssh -X. I can view html using the home machine's browser remotely but it is quite slow due to connection speed at most hotels. I prefer to view those very few particular html files by krusader/dolphin fish and transfer to local machine, then employe browser on my laptop. When using my desktop which is different than mail storage location, I dump the html via nfs to a file local to my desktop and view using my desktop's browser. Yes, that's the alternative (to IMAP) really. However a lot of my remote locations are very remote and have slow connections, running a browser remotely would be unusably slow and similarly NFS would be messy and insecure. I haven't explained myself, apparently. I *only* utilize nfs on my local systems, not outside my router. From *outside* I utilize fish://ip-addr/local/directory/... Usually the html files are not that large and doing the transfer in the background, you can continue doing something else rather than sitting and waiting. Agreed, nfs is not something to be utilized outside your local network. SSH: and fish: is the way to go as I see it. :^) -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.orgopenSUSE Community Memberfacebook/ptilopteri http://wahoo.no-ip.orgPhoto Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535@ http://linuxcounter.net
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 11:12:27AM -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote: * Chris Green c...@isbd.net [12-08-14 10:40]: I work somewhat similarily. I store all mail on my local box and maintain a tmux session which I access remotely via ssh -X. I can view html using the home machine's browser remotely but it is quite slow due to connection speed at most hotels. I prefer to view those very few particular html files by krusader/dolphin fish and transfer to local machine, then employe browser on my laptop. When using my desktop which is different than mail storage location, I dump the html via nfs to a file local to my desktop and view using my desktop's browser. Yes, that's the alternative (to IMAP) really. However a lot of my remote locations are very remote and have slow connections, running a browser remotely would be unusably slow and similarly NFS would be messy and insecure. I haven't explained myself, apparently. I *only* utilize nfs on my local systems, not outside my router. Ah, sorry, I maybe rushed to conclusions to quickly! :-) From *outside* I utilize fish://ip-addr/local/directory/... Usually the html files are not that large and doing the transfer in the background, you can continue doing something else rather than sitting and waiting. Do you do that manually or have you got it automated somehow? -- Chris Green
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
* Chris Green c...@isbd.net [12-08-14 11:52]: On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 11:12:27AM -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote: [...] From *outside* I utilize fish://ip-addr/local/directory/... Usually the html files are not that large and doing the transfer in the background, you can continue doing something else rather than sitting and waiting. Do you do that manually or have you got it automated somehow? I have a macro to copy the html attachment to a file-location, always same name so can only work one at a time, but ... Then fish: using bookmark which automagically takes the remote file to a local directory on my laptop -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.orgopenSUSE Community Memberfacebook/ptilopteri http://wahoo.no-ip.orgPhoto Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535@ http://linuxcounter.net
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 12:15:06PM -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote: * Chris Green c...@isbd.net [12-08-14 11:52]: On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 11:12:27AM -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote: [...] From *outside* I utilize fish://ip-addr/local/directory/... Usually the html files are not that large and doing the transfer in the background, you can continue doing something else rather than sitting and waiting. Do you do that manually or have you got it automated somehow? I have a macro to copy the html attachment to a file-location, always same name so can only work one at a time, but ... Then fish: using bookmark which automagically takes the remote file to a local directory on my laptop OK, thanks, that is reasonably easy then. Thanks for explaining it all. -- Chris Green
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 03:19:55PM +, Chris Green wrote: I have been using mutt for many, many years with a local (Unix style) mail spool. Mail is delivered to my system by SMTP (postfix locally). At the moment to access my mail remotely I ssh into the server and run mutt. I suspect many people do this. I do this. This works well in general but there are some disadvantages, in particular the 'v' command to access and view HTML, PDF and other graphical attachments doesn't work because, of course, there's no GUI access to the machine where I'm reading the mail. Do you not have X-forwarding set or is there some other problem? I have a shell account that doesn't allow X forwarding so maybe you're in a situation like that. If it's your box it might be worth changing one line in the sshd config. It's also a bit annoying simply saving attachments and then realising they're on the remote machine. scp or rsync the file to your local box? Presumably you are reading mail from a remote box for other reasons that are beneficial, or maybe you should just run it locally. So, I'm wondering if using IMAP would make my life easier. I would run Dovecot I expect. If I do this do things become more transparent to a remote mutt? I don't see how IMAP helps. What exactly is the difference in terms of how you read mail and where the apps run as opposed to POP? The only thing IMAP does it make you rely on a remote mail server. I never use IMAP unless they don't serve POP. I know one mail provider that doesn't honor POP delete requests so to avoid leaving 100,000 emails on their server that I can't delete I use IMAP with them. Everywhere else, POP. I'd rather rely on my own email storage. E.g. if I want to view an HTML E-Mail in Firefox (default browser) instead of within mutt (using lynx) can I just do 'v' followed by selecting the HTML attachment as I would when running mutt locally on the machine where mail is hosted? Maybe. I don't see why not. Presumably if an X app starts and you have forwarding set it should just work. Personally any HTML mail I can't read in mutt gets binned. If I get documents like PDFs I just save them on /tmp on the remote box and then use a PDF reader over X. /jl -- ASCII ribbon campaign ( ) Powered by Lemote Fuloong against HTML e-mail X Loongson MIPS and OpenBSD and proprietary/ \http://www.mutt.org attachments / \ Code Blue or Go Home! Encrypted email preferred PGP Key 2048R/DA65BC04
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 03:19:55PM +, Chris Green wrote: I have been using mutt for many, many years with a local (Unix style) mail spool. Mail is delivered to my system by SMTP (postfix locally). At the moment to access my mail remotely I ssh into the server and run mutt. This works well in general but there are some disadvantages, in particular the 'v' command to access and view HTML, PDF and other graphical attachments doesn't work because, of course, there's no GUI access to the machine where I'm reading the mail. It's also a bit annoying simply saving attachments and then realising they're on the remote machine. So, I'm wondering if using IMAP would make my life easier. I would run Dovecot I expect. If I do this do things become more transparent to a remote mutt? E.g. if I want to view an HTML E-Mail in Firefox (default browser) instead of within mutt (using lynx) can I just do 'v' followed by selecting the HTML attachment as I would when running mutt locally on the machine where mail is hosted? Hello, Chris, What I do is that at work, I mount my home mail folder using sshfs. That way, I can use my local copies of mutt, xpdf, etc. With large messages, it can get slow, sometimes, but it does save some time. -- Eduardo Alvarez Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, moriturus sum -- Rincewind The Wizzard pgpPSqBJ5VP_w.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 06:33:40PM +, John Long wrote: On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 03:19:55PM +, Chris Green wrote: I have been using mutt for many, many years with a local (Unix style) mail spool. Mail is delivered to my system by SMTP (postfix locally). At the moment to access my mail remotely I ssh into the server and run mutt. I suspect many people do this. I do this. This works well in general but there are some disadvantages, in particular the 'v' command to access and view HTML, PDF and other graphical attachments doesn't work because, of course, there's no GUI access to the machine where I'm reading the mail. Do you not have X-forwarding set or is there some other problem? I have a shell account that doesn't allow X forwarding so maybe you're in a situation like that. If it's your box it might be worth changing one line in the sshd config. I could connect with X forwarding but I don't really see how it would help. I just tried it with an HTML E-Mail, it doesn't find the file because it sees Firefox already running on the local machine and tries to use that. Also Firefox across an internet connection is impossibly slow. It's also a bit annoying simply saving attachments and then realising they're on the remote machine. scp or rsync the file to your local box? Presumably you are reading mail from a remote box for other reasons that are beneficial, or maybe you should just run it locally. Yes, if I really need to see what's in the file I do rsync it across but for the casual look at something that's a lot of hassle. I'm reading remotely usually because I'm a long way away, e.g. in London (home is Suffolk) or on a boat in France. So, I'm wondering if using IMAP would make my life easier. I would run Dovecot I expect. If I do this do things become more transparent to a remote mutt? I don't see how IMAP helps. What exactly is the difference in terms of how you read mail and where the apps run as opposed to POP? The only thing IMAP does it make you rely on a remote mail server. I never use IMAP unless they don't serve POP. I know one mail provider that doesn't honor POP delete requests so to avoid leaving 100,000 emails on their server that I can't delete I use IMAP with them. Everywhere else, POP. I'd rather rely on my own email storage. I wondered if, when using IMAP, mutt will store the temporary HTML for passing to Firefox on the local machine rather than the remote machine. One would expect it to somehow. E.g. if I want to view an HTML E-Mail in Firefox (default browser) instead of within mutt (using lynx) can I just do 'v' followed by selecting the HTML attachment as I would when running mutt locally on the machine where mail is hosted? Maybe. I don't see why not. Presumably if an X app starts and you have forwarding set it should just work. Personally any HTML mail I can't read in mutt gets binned. If I get documents like PDFs I just save them on /tmp on the remote box and then use a PDF reader over X. No, as I said I just tried it and it doesn't work because Firefox is too clever and uses the local Firefox rather than the remote one so the file is in the wrong place. -- Chris Green
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 06:40:15PM -0300, Eduardo Alvarez wrote: On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 03:19:55PM +, Chris Green wrote: I have been using mutt for many, many years with a local (Unix style) mail spool. Mail is delivered to my system by SMTP (postfix locally). At the moment to access my mail remotely I ssh into the server and run mutt. This works well in general but there are some disadvantages, in particular the 'v' command to access and view HTML, PDF and other graphical attachments doesn't work because, of course, there's no GUI access to the machine where I'm reading the mail. It's also a bit annoying simply saving attachments and then realising they're on the remote machine. So, I'm wondering if using IMAP would make my life easier. I would run Dovecot I expect. If I do this do things become more transparent to a remote mutt? E.g. if I want to view an HTML E-Mail in Firefox (default browser) instead of within mutt (using lynx) can I just do 'v' followed by selecting the HTML attachment as I would when running mutt locally on the machine where mail is hosted? Hello, Chris, What I do is that at work, I mount my home mail folder using sshfs. That way, I can use my local copies of mutt, xpdf, etc. With large messages, it can get slow, sometimes, but it does save some time. Yes, I guess that's one way of doing it, not too difficult to automate using a script. I could simply mount my ~/.mutt and my ~/Mail directories and run mutt on the laptop (which is what I'm always using when away from home). Slow with mbox I fear though, I might have to change to Maildir to make it usable. Doesn't anyone use IMAP? I must admit when I tried it (a few times over the years, but not very recently) it never felt quite as easy and transparent as using mutt on a local mail spool. -- Chris Green
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
* Chris Green c...@isbd.net [2014-12-08 17:09 -0500]: Doesn't anyone use IMAP? I must admit when I tried it (a few times over the years, but not very recently) it never felt quite as easy and transparent as using mutt on a local mail spool. I stopped using IMAP directly a while ago, and started using offlineimap to sync to local. I believe (at the time) it was just too slow trying to access my IMAP mail from the middle-east when my server was in the US. Offline IMAP was a much better solution to that, and I never changed it when I returned. I may give it a try now that I've settled down a bit, but I'll need the ability to work off-line at any time, and I'm not sure mutt'll do that. Regards, -- dave [ please don't CC me ] pgpJiyd9znc_4.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 09:59:17PM +, Chris Green wrote: On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 06:33:40PM +, John Long wrote: On Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 03:19:55PM +, Chris Green wrote: I have been using mutt for many, many years with a local (Unix style) mail spool. Mail is delivered to my system by SMTP (postfix locally). At the moment to access my mail remotely I ssh into the server and run mutt. I suspect many people do this. I do this. This works well in general but there are some disadvantages, in particular the 'v' command to access and view HTML, PDF and other graphical attachments doesn't work because, of course, there's no GUI access to the machine where I'm reading the mail. Do you not have X-forwarding set or is there some other problem? I have a shell account that doesn't allow X forwarding so maybe you're in a situation like that. If it's your box it might be worth changing one line in the sshd config. I could connect with X forwarding but I don't really see how it would help. I just tried it with an HTML E-Mail, it doesn't find the file because it sees Firefox already running on the local machine and tries to use that. Also Firefox across an internet connection is impossibly slow. With Firefox you have to start it with the correct command not to use a local instance. This is a problem with Firefox, not X forwarding. And how well it works over an internet connection depends on your internet connection. In general, X forwarding seems like the best way to accomplish what you asked. It's also a bit annoying simply saving attachments and then realising they're on the remote machine. scp or rsync the file to your local box? Presumably you are reading mail from a remote box for other reasons that are beneficial, or maybe you should just run it locally. Yes, if I really need to see what's in the file I do rsync it across but for the casual look at something that's a lot of hassle. I'm reading remotely usually because I'm a long way away, e.g. in London (home is Suffolk) or on a boat in France. Then it sounds more and more like X forwarding over a sufficiently fast connection is your only workable answer. TINSTAAFL. So, I'm wondering if using IMAP would make my life easier. I would run Dovecot I expect. If I do this do things become more transparent to a remote mutt? I don't see how IMAP helps. What exactly is the difference in terms of how you read mail and where the apps run as opposed to POP? The only thing IMAP does it make you rely on a remote mail server. I never use IMAP unless they don't serve POP. I know one mail provider that doesn't honor POP delete requests so to avoid leaving 100,000 emails on their server that I can't delete I use IMAP with them. Everywhere else, POP. I'd rather rely on my own email storage. I wondered if, when using IMAP, mutt will store the temporary HTML for passing to Firefox on the local machine rather than the remote machine. One would expect it to somehow. If I understood you then yes, but the local machine as far as mutt is concerned is the machine where mutt is running, not where you are running. All mutt's working data is where mutt runs, as in all normal apps. E.g. if I want to view an HTML E-Mail in Firefox (default browser) instead of within mutt (using lynx) can I just do 'v' followed by selecting the HTML attachment as I would when running mutt locally on the machine where mail is hosted? Maybe. I don't see why not. Presumably if an X app starts and you have forwarding set it should just work. Personally any HTML mail I can't read in mutt gets binned. If I get documents like PDFs I just save them on /tmp on the remote box and then use a PDF reader over X. No, as I said I just tried it and it doesn't work because Firefox is too clever and uses the local Firefox rather than the remote one so the file is in the wrong place. Firefox is POS technology, but depending on the version you can start it not to use your local/running instance. try firefox --no-remote and look around on the web if that doesn't do it. I have run into this several times with network firefox etc and I have it working. Also Tor has a unique browser instance, obviously this can be done. /jl -- ASCII ribbon campaign ( ) Powered by Lemote Fuloong against HTML e-mail X Loongson MIPS and OpenBSD and proprietary/ \http://www.mutt.org attachments / \ Code Blue or Go Home! Encrypted email preferred PGP Key 2048R/DA65BC04
Re: Some fairly simple-minded questions about using mutt with IMAP
On 08Dec2014 22:04, Chris Green c...@isbd.net wrote: Doesn't anyone use IMAP? I must admit when I tried it (a few times over the years, but not very recently) it never felt quite as easy and transparent as using mutt on a local mail spool. I would advocate trying offlineimap. I am a huge fan of having one's mail local to the machine for all the reasons you have outlined. I'm hoping to use offlineimap to address a situation like yours sometime (maybe January with luck): use offlineimap to replicate the remote mail server's folders on a local machine. Read email with mutt or whatever on that local machine (I have a use case for IMAP to that local machine too, for latency reasons). Offlineimap syncs all changes back to the remote server too (it is bidirectional by default). This would let me: - work on local maildirs using mutt freely, and use local HTML and image viewers - run a regular offlineimap task totally asynchronously from my mail reading; with maildirs offlineimap and mutt do not fight - use an IMAP GUI client either remotely as needed or much snappier: to the local machine's IMAP service using the local folders For me this is all theoretical so far as I have not had time. But it is a real issue I need to address, and I'd like to hear of your efforts if you try this route. Cheers, Cameron Simpson c...@zip.com.au Tomkin Coleman (tcol...@nv7.uswnvg.com) wrote: | Well, yes, get the bike but BEWARE!! | At first, you will just want to get, like, a 250 Rebel, just for commuting | and maybe a little fun, but you will wind up buying a 550, (just in case you | want to tour), and then you will stop paying any attention to the theatre | company you are working with and the graduate school you are attending, and | then you will spend all your summers touring and riding around with your | newfound biking buddies, and then you will find that you have got a real job | just so you can buy the bike of your dreams and pretty soon you will find | that your entire life has centered around your monster bike and you can only | date women who love bikes and hang with buddies who love bikes and work at a | job that supports your lifestyle and you will be incredibly happy, but always | very greasy. S! The meaning of life is supposed to be a SECRET! :-) - Bob Larson..DoD#1711..b...@honshu.ho.att.com..1994 Suzuki RF600R
