[nycbug-talk] Introducing some ubiquity to my email configuration

[Mikel King]

On Apr 25, 2006, at 1:09 PM, michael wrote:

> On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 09:42:59 -0700
> David Rio Deiros <driodeiros at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi there,
>>
>> I have been using mutt + fetchmail + procmail + msmtp for quite long
>> time (four years). Fetchmail retrieves my email using pop3 against
>> my a couple of servers (gmail and my work email). Procmail performs
>> the filtering and puts the email in the right box.
>>
>> I see a problem with this configuration though: All my email is
>> removed from the server and is stored in my laptop, which means
>> I have to backup the email periodically. Also, I always have to
>> use my laptop to read/retrieve my email otherwise I would end up
>> having my emails in different places.
>>
>> The logical solution seems to be IMAP. But if I use IMAP, I am going
>> to lose all the procmail filtering magic since the email will be
>> stored in the server. Am I right?
>>
>> I have consider the possibility of using thunderbird but I want to
>> keep using mutt.
>>
>> My questions are:
>>
>> How can I add some ubiquity without losing the benefits of my current
>> configuration?
>>
>> What do you guys use for reading your email?
>>
>> Have a good day,
>>
>> David

First sorry I missed the original...

Well lucky for you David IMAP is very flexible. There are numerous  
possibilities in the ports tree that can be used to address this  
situation. One of the interesting possibilities is to use a fat IMAP  
client like thunderchicken to access the mail account and filter your  
mail into various folders removing SPAM and such.  Of course the down  
side is that you would need a workstation to constantly run his app  
logged in as yourself. Not really a good way to go unless you are  
stuck in windows land, which since you are on this list I can bet  
that you are not.

Ok so plan two would be to use a combo of procmail and one of the  
IMAP sync apps in the ports tree, like isync or offlineimap. The way  
you slice it here really depends on your personal flare. You can have  
your server run procmail before it delivers to your mailbox and then  
use one of the sync apps to sync it local. if you do not have  
procmail access on the server you could actually do the reverse. Run  
procmail on your local and backsync to the server thus maintaining  
the filtering.

There is also imapfilter , and you can use an updated version of  
fetchmail to grab you imap box.

Cheers,
mikel