[kwlug disc.] archiving email

[Andrew Kohlsmith]

On Tuesday 27 March 2007 5:13 pm, Paul Nijjar wrote:
>  	- When that file gets too big I sort it by order and schlep the
> entire thing to an "archived file".

"sort it by order" ?  What order?

-A.

>  	I find that this is much more managable than having a bundle of
> small folders organized into directories. In the modern era of
> microcomputers I find that PINE is fast enough to search through my
> archives easily (and when it fails there is grep).

This is something I've wanted for ages and ages...  A "live" archive.  Give me 
a compressed Maildir or mbox format whose contents are only visible with a 
rightclick/"Show Archived" option, or which are searched when an appropriate 
search checkbox is checked.  All other times it silently grows....

I don't want to open it up manually.  I don't want a separate app to do it.  I 
want it in KMail/Pine/whatever.  Or, even better, I want it on my IMAP 
server.

My first idea is simply to have a compressed filesystem mounted and have 
an "Archived" Maildir show up there.  That takes care of space 
considerations, but doesn't address much in the way of searching, unless I 
make it a subfolder and then use "Search subfolders" as the "also check 
archived mail" option mentioned above.

>  	If the system you have now works well for you then why not keep
> it? But I found that brute force search really was more effective than
> careful organization of data.

Agreed, for the most part.  :-)

-A.