Re: Re: Two doubts about POP3 and IMAP

[meine]

On Wed, Sep 14, 2022 at 01:54:41PM +0200, Jan Eden via Mutt-users wrote:
> On 2022-09-12 13:37, Kurt Hackenberg wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 12, 2022 at 01:32:25PM +0200, meine wrote:
> >
> > > on the POP3: it is my favourite because mails are on my own hard disk
> > > after downloading -- both for security and archiving. I have to dive
> > > into the possibilities of having the same for IMAP.
>
> You can do this with offlineimap or isync/mbsync by syncing just
> the inbox and moving messages to different folders locally.
>
> - Jan

TNX Jan and Kurt!

//meine

Re: Re: Two doubts about POP3 and IMAP

[Jan Eden via Mutt-users]

On 2022-09-12 13:37, Kurt Hackenberg wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2022 at 01:32:25PM +0200, meine wrote:
> 
> > on the POP3: it is my favourite because mails are on my own hard disk
> > after downloading -- both for security and archiving. I have to dive
> > into the possibilities of having the same for IMAP.

You can do this with offlineimap or isync/mbsync by syncing just
the inbox and moving messages to different folders locally.

- Jan


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Re: Two doubts about POP3 and IMAP

[Kurt Hackenberg]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2022 at 01:32:25PM +0200, meine wrote:


on the POP3: it is my favourite because mails are on my own hard disk
after downloading -- both for security and archiving. I have to dive
into the possibilities of having the same for IMAP.


Fetchmail and getmail do that. There's also something named fdm.

Re: Two doubts about POP3 and IMAP

[meine]

For IMAP indeed a manual poll isn't necessary, update of the content of
mail folders is rather frequent.

on the POP3: it is my favourite because mails are on my own hard disk
after downloading -- both for security and archiving. I have to dive
into the possibilities of having the same for IMAP.

//meine

On Sun, Sep 11, 2022 at 04:38:51PM -0400, 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, 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

[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: 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

Two doubts about POP3 and IMAP

[xtec]

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

If "LAST" command has been deprecated since long ago, is there a
reason to still keep it? In the case of Getmail, is it that it actually
does not use this command but another implementation?

Thanks again.