On Tue, 2023-11-07 at 10:17 +1100, fed...@eyal.emu.id.au wrote: > The server is configured as pop3 with the option to leave the > messages on the server. > > After clicking "Get Messages" I often get no reaction for a while, > and click again in a few seconds. > In this case, after the new messages are downloaded, a second > download starts and the same messages are fetched again. > > Normally, only new messages are downloaded in this situation (so none > on a second download), as it should be. > > If I download from another client then I will get these messages > again, which is OK as each client should know what it already has. > > I have one "main" client which downloads messages, removing them from > the server. > When away from the main server, I often collect messages using other > clients, leaving the messages on the server. > This is when the problem shows.
I'll state the obvious first, then go into more detail... POP3 is really not good for leaving messages on the server. Even more so when more than one mail client is used. And it'll depend on how the server works. It never used to do that, and changes to the spec introduced the feature. We all know how well specs are (not) adhered to, and how different ones are interpreted or used and ignored, I hope. POP3 is not efficient at keeping messages and letting you download specific ones. This may simply be a speed issue for you that you may not notice, or care about. Though it gets worse with the more messages kept on the server (mail spool files, wherever they are get more painful to deal with the bigger they get). You may be lucky, and that (speed) may be the only thing you ever have to deal with. The server may simply number each message from 1 to however many there are, as the only way of identifying and dealing with the stored message. If you delete some, the remaining may keep their message numbers, *OR* the whole lot may be renumbered from 1 to however many there are. If it renumbers them, your mail clients will have little hope in working in the manner you desire if they simply deal with message numbers. Alternatively, your clients may fetch a list of messages with their unique message IDs, and they may keep a database of which IDs they've dealt with. This is more robust, but mayn't always be supported on servers and clients. And, I believe, it's still possible that a server could change message IDs (heck knows why, but I do recall some programmers mentioning that). But, either way, you don't have any way of identifying a message has been read elsewhere. Each message appears new on each client. This can be an organisational pain if you deal with a lot of mail. This is the kind of thing that IMAP is meant for. It's designed to handle picking and choosing which messages to fetch (on the mail server and the client side). It's designed for the server to flag read messages as already being read, so every mail client that accesses them can tell the read from the unread. It's designed for messages to stay on the server, although you can shift them from server to a client if you want to. But normally when you read them, you cache a local copy while leaving them on the server. It's kinda like how many webmail services work, though you use a local mail client rather than a general purpose web-browser, and you *can* have much better features. Of course there are drawbacks, some people find IMAP slower, because it's dealing with each message one-by-one as you read them. I dare say some IMAP clients could just sync your whole inbox when you connect, and so by the time you get around to reading the next message you already have it, so it'd feel the same as a finished POP3 download. But I certainly would expect this to be quicker than webmail. And IMAP isn't always available with some services. Though you can use one service to pull all your mail from everywhere using whatever protocols they support, then access your mail from the central server using IMAP. That's more or less what I do, except that my central server is on my LAN not the WWW, I don't need to access email away from base. -- uname -rsvp Linux 3.10.0-1160.102.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Oct 17 15:42:21 UTC 2023 x86_64 Boilerplate: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted. I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the mailing list. _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/users@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/new_issue
