Re: unified inbox
On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 08:08:49PM -0600, Derek Martin wrote: On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 08:32:25PM +0100, Joost Kremers wrote: On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 01:29:21PM -0500, Logan Rathbone wrote: On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 02:34:43PM -0600, Puneet Kishor wrote: So, since nothing is impossible in mutt, how can I get a unified inbox for my two accounts? I don't think having a specific feature in Mutt is necessary or desirable to achieve this. You can easily have mail from multiple accounts delivered to your mailspool using getmail or fetchmail. except that that downloads the mail to your local machine. Not if you run it on your IMAP server. but it still puts all your mail into a single mail box, which entirely defeats the purpose of a unified inbox. mutt is really a one-mail-account kind of mail client. That's amusing... I've been using it with multiple accounts for over a decade. so have i, but you need to resort to some trickery to do that. either by defining macros to change account info (server, username/password), or by collecting the mail into a single mailbox, or (like me) by running multiple instances of mutt within screen/tmux or in different tabs of one's terminal emulator. it's certainly not as simple as: set imap_user[1] = f...@bar.com set imap_pass[1] = baz set imap_user[2] = f...@buz.com set imap_pass[2] = baz2 it would be nice if mutt were to gain the ability to conveniently deal with multiple mail accounts within a single instance, but it's up to the developers to decide if they want to implement it. Many would argue that it does that already, and much more flexibly than other clients do it. define flexible in this regard. i'm not aware of anything that mutt can do with multiple accounts that e.g. thunderbird cannot. (and there are things thunderbird can do, and mutt can't, such as the unified inbox, or easily copying messages from one IMAP server to another.) i would say that mutt is so flexible that it is possible to deal with multiple accounts in spite of the fact that it wasn't designed to do so. i mean, if thunderbird were designed to handle just one mail account, there would be no way to use it with more than one. -- Joost Kremers Life has its moments
Re: unified inbox
On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 10:01:01AM +0100, Joost Kremers wrote: I don't think having a specific feature in Mutt is necessary or desirable to achieve this. You can easily have mail from multiple accounts delivered to your mailspool using getmail or fetchmail. except that that downloads the mail to your local machine. Not if you run it on your IMAP server. but it still puts all your mail into a single mail box, which entirely defeats the purpose of a unified inbox. I don't see that at all... The purpose of having a unified inbox is to present all of your new mail to you simultaneously. This does exactly that. mutt is really a one-mail-account kind of mail client. That's amusing... I've been using it with multiple accounts for over a decade. so have i, but you need to resort to some trickery to do that. either by defining macros to change account info (server, username/password), or by collecting the mail into a single mailbox, or (like me) by running multiple instances of mutt within screen/tmux or in different tabs of one's terminal emulator. it's certainly not as simple as: set imap_user[1] = f...@bar.com set imap_pass[1] = baz set imap_user[2] = f...@buz.com set imap_pass[2] = baz2 No, it's much simpler. You simply need to understand how to configure Mutt. Just use URL syntax to define your mail folders, i.e.: mailboxes imap[s]://[username1[:password1]@]server1[:port][/path] mailboxes imap[s]://[username2[:password2]@]server2[:port][/path] [Of course, putting passwords in a config file is generally stupid... but mutt is flexible enough to let you be stupid.] Then, if need be, define folder hooks (or similar) to set your identities for sending mail, and such. This is hardly trickery; this is the standard way Mutt is configured to use multiple accounts (and to do many, many other things). it would be nice if mutt were to gain the ability to conveniently deal with multiple mail accounts within a single instance, but it's up to the developers to decide if they want to implement it. Mutt is extremely unconventional, by design... that is what gives it its power. However what you want is pretty simple. You may not prefer the way it works in Mutt, but that bit is your problem. ;-) Many would argue that it does that already, and much more flexibly than other clients do it. define flexible in this regard. See above. I think that's pretty flexible. With proper hooks defined, folder or otherwise, you can switch back and forth between multiple accounts seamlessly and effortlessly, without even needing to notice. I haven't used Thunderbird for any meaningful mail usage, so I can't really compare, sadly. Each time I tried it I found it lacking in some way or other. Unified inbox is something I specifically DO NOT want, as it removes a certain amount of context from the mail-handling process for me. -- Derek D. Martinhttp://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail due to spam prevention. Sorry for the inconvenience. pgpDxwqUZMhKW.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: unified inbox
On Feb 28, 2011, at 8:15 AM, Derek Martin wrote: On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 10:01:01AM +0100, Joost Kremers wrote: I don't think having a specific feature in Mutt is necessary or desirable to achieve this. You can easily have mail from multiple accounts delivered to your mailspool using getmail or fetchmail. except that that downloads the mail to your local machine. Not if you run it on your IMAP server. but it still puts all your mail into a single mail box, which entirely defeats the purpose of a unified inbox. I don't see that at all... The purpose of having a unified inbox is to present all of your new mail to you simultaneously. This does exactly that. Actually, a unified inbox (as provided by Apple Mail.app or Postbox) presents all my new mail in one view, however, the mail actually remains in separate inboxes behind the scenes. A column in the view tells me where the mail actually resides. That way, mail can remain in physically separate accounts/inboxes, but can be seen in one view. Postbox takes this a bit further by allowing the user to create arbitrary number of groups -- so I could see inbox1 and inbox2 in a virtual view called work and inbox3 and inbox4 in a virtual view called gambling, if I so wanted. lacking in some way or other. Unified inbox is something I specifically DO NOT want, as it removes a certain amount of context from the mail-handling process for me. .. As noted above, the context is provided by a column in the view. My unified inbox in Apple Mail looks like so -- Subject Date Recd Mailbox = == = Derek Martin 8:18 AMInbox - punk.kish Re: unified inbox -- Someone Else 7:14 AMInbox - punkish Re: logging in BC makes.. -- I hope the above doesn't come out garbled. In the view above, I can see emails from two inboxes (even as they remain in their respected inboxes). In addition, since 2 lines are devoted to each mail, I can see the subject below the sender's name. Actually, Sparrow, a new, Gmail-specific IMAP only client (soon to expand to other IMAPs also) even shows the first couple of lines from the message text as well. Rather useful. Additional Note: Part of the issue is that I haven't really understood how Mutt works. In true Unix philosophy, mutt is (was) designed to do only one thing (reading and replying to my mail), while other tools did other things. More and more, tools are doing one conceptual thing (working with my mail) even though behind the scenes it is doing many things. The user, me, is not worrying about what is happening behind the scenes. More and more programs don't even require the user to interact with the physical location and storage of the content (iPhoto, Mail, and more programs in the new iOS paradigm). You open the program and your content appears there. Even if mutt works with the IMAP server, my mail is actually stored (cached) in my mutt cache location. I would like that to continue, particularly since I don't trust any IMAP servers (Google could vanish tomorrow -- in fact, just yesterday there was a report of some users finding their emails had vanished -- Google was working on fixing it), but I also like the ubiquitous availability of IMAP. The solution, for me, is to use IMAP, but to sync all my email locally, so I can have the best of both worlds. Will get there soon hopefully. Thanks all. Puneet.
Re: unified inbox
* Derek Martin inva...@pizzashack.org [2011-02-27 18:11 -0800]: On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 02:34:43PM -0600, Puneet Kishor wrote: There is much that I have to do to really get comfortable with mutt, but I think I am making slow but steady progress. One feature that really bothers me because of its absence is a unified mailbox. There isn't really any way to do this, except -- as others have said already -- to get all your mail somehow delivered to the same folder. ... The easiest way to deal with multiple accounts with mutt is to deliver mail from those accounts into specific folders, and use folder hooks to set variables associated with the respective accounts upon entering the folder. I was reading the above message when it occurred to me that using the hcache functions of mutt might be suitable to implementing a unified inbox functionality. For example, if you could define multiple inboxes and their aliases, and defined each to have the same aliase, then each accounts' messages would be stored in the same hcache directory, and thus displayed in the same the mail folder. Obviously, this is a rough draft and would need more work to be fully functional... but I think it might be useful and doable. Of course, it would need a patch (extensive) to implement... thoughts? -- dave [ please don't CC me ] pgpuy5sqyfvXT.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: unified inbox
On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 02:34:43PM -0600, Puneet Kishor wrote: There is much that I have to do to really get comfortable with mutt, but I think I am making slow but steady progress. One feature that really bothers me because of its absence is a unified mailbox. There isn't really any way to do this, except -- as others have said already -- to get all your mail somehow delivered to the same folder. There are many ways to accomplish this... If you have shell access to the server (and it's Unix-like), a .forward file will allow you to redirect all your mail elsewhere. The fetchmail program can be configured to fetch mail from numerous sources and store it all in one folder (this could be on an IMAP server... there isn't any technical reason this needs to be delivered to your desktop). This idea seems somewhat counter to the philosophy of Mutt, which one might summarize as a place for everything, and everything in its place. Most people I have encountered who use Mutt and enjoy it specifically do not want a unified inbox, myself certainly included. I think it's fair to say that Mutt was not designed with this paradigm in mind... The easiest way to deal with multiple accounts with mutt is to deliver mail from those accounts into specific folders, and use folder hooks to set variables associated with the respective accounts upon entering the folder. Note that I said easiest -- it is in no way the only way to do that. As is, with mutt, I am constantly flipping between one account to another, and even though I have mapped the F1 and F2 keys to the inboxes for the two accounts, it is a pain in the derierre. Everytime mutt has to scan through the cache and rebuild the index view. This is only a pain if you're keeping thousands of messages in your inbox (maybe hundreds with IMAP). You certainly can do that, but in many ways it would be more efficient to archive read mail into another folder, relegating your inbox for onlyl what that name implies: incoming items. You can, of course, run multiple copies of Mutt, each in a different folder. So, since nothing is impossible in mutt, how can I get a unified inbox for my two accounts? Many things are impossible in Mutt, and many other things are possible but hard or painful. In some cases, the folks on the list have struggled with the same problems you are encountering and can help provide solutions. But if you're committed to the speed and power of Mutt, yet can't find a solution to make a particular aspect of Mutt behave the way you want, it may sometimes be more fruitful to consider changing the way you think about and handle your mail. Mutt is fast and powerful, but it is definitely not for everyone. -- Derek D. Martinhttp://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail due to spam prevention. Sorry for the inconvenience. pgpfxvBYYw5HX.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: unified inbox
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 02:53:44PM -0500, Logan Rathbone wrote: Personally I prefer to use the right tool for the right job. Thunderbird is a much better IMAP client than Mutt, so why not use Thunderbird? How so? I disagree; I think Mutt is more of a 'read mail from file' kind of mail client. This whole concept of Mutt's directly accessing either the POP3 or IMAP protocol is a relatively new feature to the client and Mutt really wasn't originally designed to work that way. Uh huh... That's completely preposterous. I really don't care for some of the features they've added into 1.5.x, but I can see why some might see the features as attractive. I tried to use Mutt as an IMAP client for awhile, but I threw away that approach because I realized rather quickly that while Mutt may tolerate being used in that way, it doesn't *want* to. Mutt 1.4 is ancient. It worked about as well as anything did with IMAP circa 2000... IMAP has seen numerous improvements since then, and in order to benefit from them you MUST use the 1.5 tree. Mutt's core IMAP functionality also improved greatly in the 1.5 tree. So if you're using 1.4, well, that's kind of retarded (literally)... Mutt 1.5 is about 9 years old... -- Derek D. Martinhttp://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail due to spam prevention. Sorry for the inconvenience. pgpMiF1KnREZq.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: unified inbox
On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 02:34:43PM -0600, Puneet Kishor wrote: So, since nothing is impossible in mutt, how can I get a unified inbox for my two accounts? I don't think having a specific feature in Mutt is necessary or desirable to achieve this. You can easily have mail from multiple accounts delivered to your mailspool using getmail or fetchmail. After you've done so, it's simply a matter of *not* configuring procmail or another MDA to deliver the mail from these separate accounts to separate mail folders on your hard drive.
Re: unified inbox
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 01:29:21PM -0500, Logan Rathbone wrote: On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 02:34:43PM -0600, Puneet Kishor wrote: So, since nothing is impossible in mutt, how can I get a unified inbox for my two accounts? I don't think having a specific feature in Mutt is necessary or desirable to achieve this. You can easily have mail from multiple accounts delivered to your mailspool using getmail or fetchmail. except that that downloads the mail to your local machine. the unified mailbox concept means that the inboxes from multiple (IMAP) mail accounts are presented as a single mailbox, without actually merging them into a single mailbox. the mail remains on the IMAP servers. mutt is really a one-mail-account kind of mail client. while there are ways to use it with multiple mail accounts (i use screen with multiple mutt instances, for example), it's not really as convenient as e.g. thunderbird makes it. it would be nice if mutt were to gain the ability to conveniently deal with multiple mail accounts within a single instance, but it's up to the developers to decide if they want to implement it. -- Joost Kremers Life has its moments
Re: unified inbox
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 08:32:25PM +0100, Joost Kremers wrote: On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 01:29:21PM -0500, Logan Rathbone wrote: On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 02:34:43PM -0600, Puneet Kishor wrote: So, since nothing is impossible in mutt, how can I get a unified inbox for my two accounts? I don't think having a specific feature in Mutt is necessary or desirable to achieve this. You can easily have mail from multiple accounts delivered to your mailspool using getmail or fetchmail. except that that downloads the mail to your local machine. the unified mailbox concept means that the inboxes from multiple (IMAP) mail accounts are presented as a single mailbox, without actually merging them into a single mailbox. the mail remains on the IMAP servers. Personally I prefer to use the right tool for the right job. Thunderbird is a much better IMAP client than Mutt, so why not use Thunderbird? mutt is really a one-mail-account kind of mail client. while there are ways to use it with multiple mail accounts (i use screen with multiple mutt instances, for example), it's not really as convenient as e.g. thunderbird makes it. I disagree; I think Mutt is more of a 'read mail from file' kind of mail client. This whole concept of Mutt's directly accessing either the POP3 or IMAP protocol is a relatively new feature to the client and Mutt really wasn't originally designed to work that way. I really don't care for some of the features they've added into 1.5.x, but I can see why some might see the features as attractive. I tried to use Mutt as an IMAP client for awhile, but I threw away that approach because I realized rather quickly that while Mutt may tolerate being used in that way, it doesn't *want* to. it would be nice if mutt were to gain the ability to conveniently deal with multiple mail accounts within a single instance, but it's up to the developers to decide if they want to implement it. I think the devs are at the point where they need to decide whether to go all in or all out. If they're going to start turning Mutt into something remotely resembling a half-decent IMAP client, they're going to have to start adding features like the unified IMAP mailbox you describe. Personally I just feel that it bloats the code. I would prefer for Mutt to stay Mutt, the 'read mail from file' MUA, and have people that want to use a TUI IMAP client use one. But if these new 1.5.x features are here to stay, I agree that Mutt should need to be more accommodating with multiple IMAP accounts.
Re: unified inbox
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 02:53:44PM -0500, Logan Rathbone wrote: On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 08:32:25PM +0100, Joost Kremers wrote: Personally I prefer to use the right tool for the right job. Thunderbird is a much better IMAP client than Mutt, so why not use Thunderbird? well, if you ask me personally, for various reasons. the fact that it's a text-mode mail client is a large part of it. for me, mutt's IMAP capabilities are good enough. i don't even want a unified inbox... mutt is really a one-mail-account kind of mail client. while there are ways to use it with multiple mail accounts (i use screen with multiple mutt instances, for example), it's not really as convenient as e.g. thunderbird makes it. I disagree; I think Mutt is more of a 'read mail from file' kind of mail client. This whole concept of Mutt's directly accessing either the POP3 or IMAP protocol is a relatively new feature to the client and Mutt really wasn't originally designed to work that way. dunno, the oldest entry in the changelog for 1.4 (from 1998, apparently before mutt's first beta release) at http://www.mutt.org/doc/ChangeLog refers to IMAP. I really don't care for some of the features they've added into 1.5.x, but I can see why some might see the features as attractive. I tried to use Mutt as an IMAP client for awhile, but I threw away that approach because I realized rather quickly that while Mutt may tolerate being used in that way, it doesn't *want* to. if that were the case, then why would there be IMAP support in mutt at all? it's true that mutt seems to have a strong bias toward reading mail from local files, but it has IMAP support. (and it seems certainly better than what other text-mode mailers offer, including emacs-based ones.) -- Joost Kremers Life has its moments
Re: unified inbox
my two bytes below -- On Saturday, February 26, 2011 at 1:53 PM, Logan Rathbone wrote: On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 08:32:25PM +0100, Joost Kremers wrote: On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 01:29:21PM -0500, Logan Rathbone wrote: On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 02:34:43PM -0600, Puneet Kishor wrote: So, since nothing is impossible in mutt, how can I get a unified inbox for my two accounts? I don't think having a specific feature in Mutt is necessary or desirable to achieve this. You can easily have mail from multiple accounts delivered to your mailspool using getmail or fetchmail. except that that downloads the mail to your local machine. the unified mailbox concept means that the inboxes from multiple (IMAP) mail accounts are presented as a single mailbox, without actually merging them into a single mailbox. the mail remains on the IMAP servers. Personally I prefer to use the right tool for the right job. Thunderbird is a much better IMAP client than Mutt, so why not use Thunderbird? Most other programs (that I have been used to so far) provided all the capabilities that I can get with mutt once I figure out how to configure every bit and bob correctly. Programs such as Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Postbox, Sparrow, etc. do all the email getting, storing, sorting, editing, replying, tagging, etc. From my point of view, I see an email program doing all that is necessary for me to work with my email. The reason I like mutt is because of its speed. All the programs I have mentioned above start breaking down in speed, perhaps hampered by the complexity of drawing the user interface, or doing whatever house-keeping they need to do behind the scene. The reason I use IMAP is because I want my mail to be available on a remote server so I don't have to worry about backing it up, so I can access it from anywhere, using any client, if I need to. That said, for the most part, I access my email from my laptop, that is always with me. My email is hosted on Gmail (Google apps) which takes care of spam, storage, tagging, etc. However, I also want a copy of my email on my computer. In my ideal situation, I have an exact copy of all my email on my laptop as it is on Gmail's servers. That way, I can access/read/search my email even if I am not connected to the Internet. So, as far as I am concerned, my email reader is a reader for a local email storage (I guess this was mutt's traditional role) which it downloads from my IMAP server (mutt's new role). When I send my mail out, my mail reader bot keeps a copy of the outgoing mail, as well as ensure a copy lands up on the remote server. There is a lot about mutt that I (right now) find to be a pain in the butt. I can't jump to web links in the text easily (alpine does a really nice job of this), mairix is still not working for me, integration with the rest of the Mac OS X system is spotty, out-going email addresses are not automatically collected as aliases, etc. I am sure I will figure it out as long as I keep at it. I am already a lot better at mutt than I was when I started a month of so ago in earnest. But I do miss a bunch of features in other mail clients. I want the technology to assist me, not get in my way. The GUI programs get in my way by being slow even while they assist me by ensuring that most basic tasks are already configured for me. mutt gets in my way by making me configure every tiny aspect of it, but assists me by being really fast. I am not yet sure of which way my cookie crumbles. ..
Re: unified inbox
* Puneet Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com [02-26-11 19:02]: The reason I like mutt is because of its speed. All the programs I have mentioned above start breaking down in speed, perhaps hampered by the complexity of drawing the user interface, or doing whatever house-keeping they need to do behind the scene. The reason I use IMAP is because I want my mail to be available on a remote server so I don't have to worry about backing it up, so I can access it from anywhere, using any client, if I need to. That said, for the most part, I access my email from my laptop, that is always with me. My email is hosted on Gmail (Google apps) which takes care of spam, storage, tagging, etc. However, I also want a copy of my email on my computer. In my ideal situation, I have an exact copy of all my email on my laptop as it is on Gmail's servers. That way, I can access/read/search my email even if I am not connected to the Internet. So, as far as I am concerned, my email reader is a reader for a local email storage (I guess this was mutt's traditional role) which it downloads from my IMAP server (mutt's new role). When I send my mail out, my mail reader bot keeps a copy of the outgoing mail, as well as ensure a copy lands up on the remote server. There is a lot about mutt that I (right now) find to be a pain in the butt. I can't jump to web links in the text easily (alpine does a really nice job of this), mairix is still not working for me, integration with the rest of the Mac OS X system is spotty, out-going email addresses are not automatically collected as aliases, etc. I am sure I will figure it out as long as I keep at it. I am already a lot better at mutt than I was when I started a month of so ago in earnest. But I do miss a bunch of features in other mail clients. I want the technology to assist me, not get in my way. The GUI programs get in my way by being slow even while they assist me by ensuring that most basic tasks are already configured for me. mutt gets in my way by making me configure every tiny aspect of it, but assists me by being really fast. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.orgPhoto Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org
unified inbox
There is much that I have to do to really get comfortable with mutt, but I think I am making slow but steady progress. One feature that really bothers me because of its absence is a unified mailbox. I have two Gmail IMAP accounts, and other mail programs (I am on a Mac -- Apple Mail and Postbox) offer a unified inbox which shows emails from inboxes from all accounts. The emails are still marked with which account they belong to, but it really helps. As is, with mutt, I am constantly flipping between one account to another, and even though I have mapped the F1 and F2 keys to the inboxes for the two accounts, it is a pain in the derierre. Everytime mutt has to scan through the cache and rebuild the index view. So, since nothing is impossible in mutt, how can I get a unified inbox for my two accounts? Tia. Puneet.
Re: unified inbox
On Feb 24, 2011 at 02:34 PM -0600, Puneet Kishor wrote: As is, with mutt, I am constantly flipping between one account to another, and even though I have mapped the F1 and F2 keys to the inboxes for the two accounts, it is a pain in the derierre. Everytime mutt has to scan through the cache and rebuild the index view. I don't have a real answer for you. What I do is to keep my two inboxes open in separate tabs of my terminal. One is a work account and the other is personal. A unified inbox would be cool, but this works just as well for me. I can quickly go back and forth between tabs with a key combo.
Re: unified inbox
On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 04:12:36PM -0500, Tim Gray wrote: On Feb 24, 2011 at 02:34 PM -0600, Puneet Kishor wrote: As is, with mutt, I am constantly flipping between one account to another, and even though I have mapped the F1 and F2 keys to the inboxes for the two accounts, it is a pain in the derierre. Everytime mutt has to scan through the cache and rebuild the index view. I don't have a real answer for you. What I do is to keep my two inboxes open in separate tabs of my terminal. One is a work account and the other is personal. A unified inbox would be cool, but this works just as well for me. I can quickly go back and forth between tabs with a key combo. Thanks. I did not realize that was possible. I have now opened up two tabs in my terminal, and have two mutt views. It is a great step forward from flipping account folders back and forth; many thanks. That said, it is still not as convenient as a unified inbox as I still have to flip between the two tabs to check if there is new mail in one or the other. Hopefully someone else will chime in with a bright idea. Puneet.
