Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:45:13 -0500 Stewart Dean sd...@bard.edu wrote: Is there a simple robust IMAP client to replace Pine (which I *think* is no longer supported)? GUI or TTY session? I'm wondering if there is something we can tell users to use when Things Are Dire. GUI would be better since it removes one of the few remaining reasons for a logon server GUIwise, I have been using Sylpheed for years, both personally and professionally, and I believe it to be the best GUI-type IMAP client around. It too does the header caching and other stuff mentioned but, compared with Thunderbird, it has: . always performed better (i.e., faster) . never crashed (AFAICR) Bling-wise, it's a bit poor, but it gets the job done. Mário Barbosa
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
On Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:11:25 + Mário Barbosa mplbarb...@clix.pt wrote: On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:45:13 -0500 Stewart Dean sd...@bard.edu wrote: Is there a simple robust IMAP client to replace Pine (which I *think* is no longer supported)? GUI or TTY session? I'm wondering if there is something we can tell users to use when Things Are Dire. GUI would be better since it removes one of the few remaining reasons for a logon server GUIwise, I have been using Sylpheed for years, both personally and professionally, and I believe it to be the best GUI-type IMAP client around. It too does the header caching and other stuff mentioned but, compared with Thunderbird, it has: . always performed better (i.e., faster) . never crashed (AFAICR) Bling-wise, it's a bit poor, but it gets the job done. Mário Barbosa I would recommend Claws Mail instead, it is the succesor of Sylpheed and is much better... :) BTJ -- --- Bjørn T Johansen b...@havleik.no --- Someone wrote: I understand that if you play a Windows CD backwards you hear strange Satanic messages To which someone replied: It's even worse than that; play it forwards and it installs Windows ---
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Mon, 15 Dec 2008, Stewart Dean wrote: telling me there were still 135,000 messages. In the end, I had to kill the TBird profile for that account and recreate it. Yeah, the first and only time I opened the Postmaster mailbox with Thunderbird, it nearly rendered a Dual Core2 useless. Putting strace on it revealed, that Tbird was working with its message cache endlessly. I really waited till it finished, but to delete anything was even worse. The internal cache file is not designed for that many mails, I guess. Is there a simple robust IMAP client to replace Pine (which I *think* is no longer supported)? GUI or TTY session? :-) Yes, I never read Postmaster's mail box with Thunderbird. Pine has been replaced by Alpine, as others pointing out and works unproblematicly with Dovecot, regardless of how many mails there are, as long as Dovecot keeps up. Mutt works, too. Although I don't like the input chars (same old vi vs. emacs adiction), it is far better than pine when running on the Maildir natively bypassing IMAP. After training, mutt should be more powerful than pine. Both Mutt and Pine are superior in these emergency situations, because they do not cache the mail info locally, before they prompt the user. I guess, you can use any other client doing the same. I'm wondering if there is something we can tell users to use when Things Are Dire. GUI would be better since it removes one of the few remaining reasons for a logon server Well, the combination of mutt and server logon will work for any desaster case IMO. Bye, - -- Steffen Kaiser -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFJR2kCVJMDrex4hCIRAvobAJsFjy/XRuOWQna21MBoRLQle1WsswCggdii WqLoNUvWcjZvdhjO8/ufXuo= =6kz3 -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
Words by Timo Sirainen [Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 04:40:01PM +0200]: On Tue, 2008-12-16 at 14:26 +, Jose Celestino wrote: Words by Timo Sirainen [Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 08:17:11AM +0200]: On Mon, 2008-12-15 at 12:45 -0500, Stewart Dean wrote: Is there a simple robust IMAP client to replace Pine (which I *think* is no longer supported)? GUI or TTY session? Pine and Alpine are about the only clients (besides webmails) that can open a mailbox without downloading every single message's headers at startup. So they're probably the only clients where you can quickly open a huge mailbox and start deleting messages. I wish there were more clients that worked like that. Mutt also has header caching. Just compile it with --enable-hcache Enable header caching But it still downloads all the mails at some point, right? So if there are 100k new messages, it downloads their headers. Whereas Pine would only download them as necessary (one or two pagefuls at a time). Absolutely right. It will download them *all* at startup if not in cache, not page by page. -- Jose Celestino | http://japc.uncovering.org/files/japc-pgpkey.asc One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
Words by Timo Sirainen [Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 08:17:11AM +0200]: On Mon, 2008-12-15 at 12:45 -0500, Stewart Dean wrote: Is there a simple robust IMAP client to replace Pine (which I *think* is no longer supported)? GUI or TTY session? Pine and Alpine are about the only clients (besides webmails) that can open a mailbox without downloading every single message's headers at startup. So they're probably the only clients where you can quickly open a huge mailbox and start deleting messages. I wish there were more clients that worked like that. Mutt also has header caching. Just compile it with --enable-hcache Enable header caching -- Jose Celestino | http://japc.uncovering.org/files/japc-pgpkey.asc One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
On Tue, 2008-12-16 at 14:26 +, Jose Celestino wrote: Words by Timo Sirainen [Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 08:17:11AM +0200]: On Mon, 2008-12-15 at 12:45 -0500, Stewart Dean wrote: Is there a simple robust IMAP client to replace Pine (which I *think* is no longer supported)? GUI or TTY session? Pine and Alpine are about the only clients (besides webmails) that can open a mailbox without downloading every single message's headers at startup. So they're probably the only clients where you can quickly open a huge mailbox and start deleting messages. I wish there were more clients that worked like that. Mutt also has header caching. Just compile it with --enable-hcache Enable header caching But it still downloads all the mails at some point, right? So if there are 100k new messages, it downloads their headers. Whereas Pine would only download them as necessary (one or two pagefuls at a time). signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
[Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
This weekend we had a runaway email endless loop. When it was killed after 18 hours, my inbox had 135,000 messages in it...there were two messages that were being endlessly sent and bounced and I'm on the postmaster alias. Thunderbird was able to do a mass select of one of the two messages, and deleted 65,000, but after that it locked up. I ended up firing up Pine to do the final 65,000...whereas TBird had had mulitple imap sessions (and failed), Pine only had one and did the job. And even after I had done the mass delete of the other 65,000 and the inbox was down to 2000 messages, TBird was still hiding under the covers and telling me there were still 135,000 messages. In the end, I had to kill the TBird profile for that account and recreate it. Is there a simple robust IMAP client to replace Pine (which I *think* is no longer supported)? GUI or TTY session? I'm wondering if there is something we can tell users to use when Things Are Dire. GUI would be better since it removes one of the few remaining reasons for a logon server -- Once upon a time, the Internet was a friendly, neighbors-helping-neighbors small town, and no one locked their doors. Now it's like an apartment in Bed-Stuy: you need three heavy duty pick-proof locks, one of those braces that goes from the lock to the floor, and bars on the windows Stewart Dean, Unix System Admin, Bard College, New York 12504 sd...@bard.edu voice: 845-758-7475, fax: 845-758-7035
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
Stewart Dean wrote: This weekend we had a runaway email endless loop. When it was killed after 18 hours, my inbox had 135,000 messages in it...there were two messages that were being endlessly sent and bounced and I'm on the postmaster alias. Thunderbird was able to do a mass select of one of the two messages, and deleted 65,000, but after that it locked up. I ended up firing up Pine to do the final 65,000...whereas TBird had had mulitple imap sessions (and failed), Pine only had one and did the job. And even after I had done the mass delete of the other 65,000 and the inbox was down to 2000 messages, TBird was still hiding under the covers and telling me there were still 135,000 messages. In the end, I had to kill the TBird profile for that account and recreate it. Is there a simple robust IMAP client to replace Pine (which I *think* is no longer supported)? GUI or TTY session? I'm wondering if there is something we can tell users to use when Things Are Dire. GUI would be better since it removes one of the few remaining reasons for a logon server I think Evolution handles large bundles of mail really well - though on Windows it's a bit of a mess of an application. It doesn't do single large messages very quickly though. Alternately, if you're using Maildir, you could always grep and rm. Rick
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
* Stewart Dean sd...@bard.edu: This weekend we had a runaway email endless loop. When it was killed after 18 hours, my inbox had 135,000 messages in it...there were two messages that were being endlessly sent and bounced and I'm on the postmaster alias. Thunderbird was able to do a mass select of one of the two messages, and deleted 65,000, but after that it locked up. I ended up firing up Pine to do the final 65,000...whereas TBird had had mulitple imap sessions (and failed), Pine only had one and did the job. And even after I had done the mass delete of the other 65,000 and the inbox was down to 2000 messages, TBird was still hiding under the covers and telling me there were still 135,000 messages. In the end, I had to kill the TBird profile for that account and recreate it. Is there a simple robust IMAP client to replace Pine (which I *think* is no longer supported)? GUI or TTY session? I use mutt to do IMAP and SMTP and I like it. YMMV... p...@rick -- state of mind Agentur für Kommunikation, Design und Softwareentwicklung Patrick KoetterTel: 089 45227227 Echinger Strasse 3 Fax: 089 45227226 85386 Eching Web: http://www.state-of-mind.de Amtsgericht MünchenPartnerschaftsregister PR 563
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
Stewart Dean schrieb: This weekend we had a runaway email endless loop. When it was killed after 18 hours, my inbox had 135,000 messages in it...there were two messages that were being endlessly sent and bounced and I'm on the postmaster alias. Thunderbird was able to do a mass select of one of the two messages, and deleted 65,000, but after that it locked up. I ended up firing up Pine to do the final 65,000...whereas TBird had had mulitple imap sessions (and failed), Pine only had one and did the job. And even after I had done the mass delete of the other 65,000 and the inbox was down to 2000 messages, TBird was still hiding under the covers and telling me there were still 135,000 messages. In the end, I had to kill the TBird profile for that account and recreate it. Is there a simple robust IMAP client to replace Pine (which I *think* is no longer supported)? GUI or TTY session? alpine, the official successor of pine: http://www.washington.edu/alpine/
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
On 12/15/2008, Ed W (li...@wildgooses.com) wrote: Thunderbird was able to do a mass select of one of the two messages, and deleted 65,000, but after that it locked up. I'd never try to delete that many at once... It very likely wasn't locked up though, it probably was working furiously to try to do what you told it to do - the problem is, it can *appear* to be locked up, even for many minutes, but if you let it go, it will eventually finish (or time out)... But, if you ever try this again, it helps a LOT if you do a 'SHIFT-delete' (press/hold the shift key, then tap the Delete button on the keyboard) - this bypasses the Trash - otherwise, it isn't deleting them it is MOVING them to the Trash, which can take a long time for that many messages. I usually work with a thousand or so at a time if I need to do something like this, and it works, although it certainly isn't instantaneous... -- Best regards, Charles
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
Charles Marcus wrote: On 12/15/2008, Ed W (li...@wildgooses.com) wrote: Thunderbird was able to do a mass select of one of the two messages, and deleted 65,000, but after that it locked up. I'd never try to delete that many at once... It very likely wasn't locked up though, it probably was working furiously to try to do what you told it to do - the problem is, it can *appear* to be locked up, even for many minutes, but if you let it go, it will eventually finish (or time out)... Pine did it in2-3 minutes with one imapd instance; TBird was thrashing mightly for 20+ minutes with 4-8 imapd instances, and no progress in siteeven after Pine had deleted the inbox down to 2000 messages. But, if you ever try this again, it helps a LOT if you do a 'SHIFT-delete' (press/hold the shift key, then tap the Delete button on the keyboard) - this bypasses the Trash - otherwise, it isn't deleting them it is MOVING them to the Trash, which can take a long time for that many messages. Was not moving to Trash, just directly expunging stuff that had been marked for deletion I usually work with a thousand or so at a time if I need to do something like this, and it works, although it certainly isn't instantaneous... With sigh, I know, I know a mbox format inbox, I don't know that it matters much whether it's 10 files or 10,000...it's still gotta haul out the whole ugly thing. We had a bad, bad user that got up to 1.3GB...and our server still handled it without undue distress. Must be some amazingly optimized file system I/O in the O/S (AIX) -- Once upon a time, the Internet was a friendly, neighbors-helping-neighbors small town, and no one locked their doors. Now it's like an apartment in Bed-Stuy: you need three heavy duty pick-proof locks, one of those braces that goes from the lock to the floor, and bars on the windows Stewart Dean, Unix System Admin, Bard College, New York 12504 sd...@bard.edu voice: 845-758-7475, fax: 845-758-7035
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
On 12/15/2008 2:34 PM, Stewart Dean wrote: Thunderbird was able to do a mass select of one of the two messages, and deleted 65,000, but after that it locked up. I'd never try to delete that many at once... It very likely wasn't locked up though, it probably was working furiously to try to do what you told it to do - the problem is, it can *appear* to be locked up, even for many minutes, but if you let it go, it will eventually finish (or time out)... Pine did it in2-3 minutes with one imapd instance; TBird was thrashing mightly for 20+ minutes with 4-8 imapd instances, and no progress in siteeven after Pine had deleted the inbox down to 2000 messages. I never said TBird was 'better' than Pine, I merely commented on how TBird works with lots of messages in my experience... Also, from what you just said, you were working with that many messages with Pine at the same time as with TBird? TBird is an excellent IMAP client, as long as you understand its quirks and work with them. Bottom line - if you expect it to behave exactly like Pine - or like you think it *should* - then expect to be disappointed. But, if you ever try this again, it helps a LOT if you do a 'SHIFT-delete' (press/hold the shift key, then tap the Delete button on the keyboard) - this bypasses the Trash - otherwise, it isn't deleting them it is MOVING them to the Trash, which can take a long time for that many messages. Was not moving to Trash, just directly expunging stuff that had been marked for deletion I don't know what that means in TBird-speak. There is no 'expunge' command that I am aware of, either as a toolbar button or a menu choice. There is a 'delete' button on the toolbar, and you can select messages and hit the 'delete' key on the keyboard. You can also right-click on the Trash and 'empty' it. The only place I know of that contains the word 'expunge' is in the Account Settings, where you can tell it to expunge the Inbox on exit. So, I'm curious - what, exactly, did you do in TBird? You selected all of the messages in the Inbox, then... ? I usually work with a thousand or so at a time if I need to do something like this, and it works, although it certainly isn't instantaneous... With sigh, I know, I know a mbox format inbox, I don't know that it matters much whether it's 10 files or 10,000...it's still gotta haul out the whole ugly thing. Ok, well, I only use maildir format, so can't speak to TBirds performance or quirks wrt mbox... -- Best regards, Charles
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
Charles Marcus wrote: On 12/15/2008 2:34 PM, Stewart Dean wrote: Thunderbird was able to do a mass select of one of the two messages, and deleted 65,000, but after that it locked up. I'd never try to delete that many at once... It very likely wasn't locked up though, it probably was working furiously to try to do what you told it to do - the problem is, it can *appear* to be locked up, even for many minutes, but if you let it go, it will eventually finish (or time out)... Pine did it in2-3 minutes with one imapd instance; TBird was thrashing mightly for 20+ minutes with 4-8 imapd instances, and no progress in siteeven after Pine had deleted the inbox down to 2000 messages. I never said TBird was 'better' than Pine, I merely commented on how TBird works with lots of messages in my experience... Oh, I only use Pine as a last resort. Tbrid had done the first 65,000 just fine...and then it locked up Also, from what you just said, you were working with that many messages with Pine at the same time as with TBird? TBird is an excellent IMAP client, as long as you understand its quirks and work with them. Been using it for years Bottom line - if you expect it to behave exactly like Pine - or like you think it *should* - then expect to be disappointed. I would like Tbird to do just what it does now, but be more robust (and maybe a little quicker) about it. Bombproof, as they say. But, if you ever try this again, it helps a LOT if you do a 'SHIFT-delete' (press/hold the shift key, then tap the Delete button on the keyboard) - this bypasses the Trash - otherwise, it isn't deleting them it is MOVING them to the Trash, which can take a long time for that many messages. Was not moving to Trash, just directly expunging stuff that had been marked for deletion I don't know what that means in TBird-speak. There is no 'expunge' command that I am aware of, either as a toolbar button or a menu choice. There is a 'delete' button on the toolbar, and you can select messages and hit the 'delete' key on the keyboard. You can also right-click on the Trash and 'empty' it. The only place I know of that contains the word 'expunge' is in the Account Settings, where you can tell it to expunge the Inbox on exit. So, I'm curious - what, exactly, did you do in TBird? You selected all of the messages in the Inbox, then... ? I marked them for Deletion (dunno what exactly that does, maybe something in that first mbox entry or in the index orbut it does NOT xfer them to another folder, just gives them a black spot. Then, under file, I would select Compact Folders, though now I use a TBird AddOn called Purge, which give me a control bar Icon to do it. I usually work with a thousand or so at a time if I need to do something like this, and it works, although it certainly isn't instantaneous... With sigh, I know, I know a mbox format inbox, I don't know that it matters much whether it's 10 files or 10,000...it's still gotta haul out the whole ugly thing. Ok, well, I only use maildir format, so can't speak to TBirds performance or quirks wrt mbox... -- Once upon a time, the Internet was a friendly, neighbors-helping-neighbors small town, and no one locked their doors. Now it's like an apartment in Bed-Stuy: you need three heavy duty pick-proof locks, one of those braces that goes from the lock to the floor, and bars on the windows Stewart Dean, Unix System Admin, Bard College, New York 12504 sd...@bard.edu voice: 845-758-7475, fax: 845-758-7035
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
On 12/15/2008, Stewart Dean (sd...@bard.edu) wrote: I would like Tbird to do just what it does now, but be more robust (and maybe a little quicker) about it. Bombproof, as they say. I'm with you there, and I've read that the new 3.0 will have a lot of IMAP improvements, but haven't tried it yet. I tend to avoid alphas, but I'll probably give the betas a whirl,if can install both and run them side by side like I could Firefox 2 and 3... So, I'm curious - what, exactly, did you do in TBird? You selected all of the messages in the Inbox, then... ? I marked them for Deletion (dunno what exactly that does, maybe something in that first mbox entry or in the index orbut it does NOT xfer them to another folder, just gives them a black spot. Ahh, ok, I always leave 'When I delete a message' set at the default 'Move it to the trash folder'... so, my experience here is non-existent and irrelevant... ;) -- Best regards, Charles
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
Is there a simple robust IMAP client Yes: mutt. One of the reasons we use mutt not only for regular mail access, but for troubleshooting: it simply does what you tell it to do. It doesn't try to be clever or try to do what it thinks you actually wanted to do. Apart from that, it's scriptable and heavily configurable. And autoview (combined with metamail and copiousoutput) lets you almost forget people sending you html-only or M$-doc-only mails. to replace Pine (which I *think* is no longer supported)? Alpine?
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
On Mon, 2008-12-15 at 14:34 -0500, Stewart Dean wrote:
With sigh, I know, I know a mbox format inbox, I don't know that it
matters much whether it's 10 files or 10,000...it's still gotta haul out
the whole ugly thing.
Aha, mbox. And pine is your last resort (as you stated in a follow up)?
formail and procmail are a last resort! ;) Frankly, if you ask me, they
really are not a bad choice for post processing and surgery in mbox
anyway.
guenther -- who hacked a formail-grep wrapper script ;)
--
char *t=\10pse\0r\0dtu...@ghno\x4e\xc8\x79\xf4\xab\x51\x8a\x10\xf4\xf4\xc4;
main(){ char h,m=h=*t++,*x=t+2*h,c,i,l=*x,s=0; for (i=0;il;i++){ i%8? c=1:
(c=*++x); c128 (s+=h); if (!(h=1)||!t[s+h]){ putchar(t[s]);h=m;s=0; }}}
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 12:45:13PM -0500, Stewart Dean wrote: [...] Is there a simple robust IMAP client to replace Pine (which I *think* is no longer supported)? GUI or TTY session? I switched from Pine to Mutt (quite a while ago) and to me, Mutt is like Pine but a lot faster. OK, there are some features added ;-) Regards - -- tomás -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFJRz/qBcgs9XrR2kYRAsGcAJ42hWRQMgEewhV7owTJdATRyo2x+gCfb83T ibP1axKWwEuQH7PiaDVP9/g= =cNZ3 -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client
On Mon, 2008-12-15 at 12:45 -0500, Stewart Dean wrote: Is there a simple robust IMAP client to replace Pine (which I *think* is no longer supported)? GUI or TTY session? Pine and Alpine are about the only clients (besides webmails) that can open a mailbox without downloading every single message's headers at startup. So they're probably the only clients where you can quickly open a huge mailbox and start deleting messages. I wish there were more clients that worked like that. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
