Re: [Evolution] delete mail after xx days from POP3 server

[Russell Steinthal <rms39 columbia edu>]

On Sat, 2002-04-13 at 11:13, Rob Walker wrote:
> On Sat, 2002-04-13 at 02:53, Rob Hassing wrote:
> > On Sat, 2002-04-13 at 05:18, Brian wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2002-04-12 at 21:55, Paul Merlin wrote:
> > > > Le ven 12/04/2002 à 20:38, Jeffrey Stedfast a écrit :
> > > > > There's no way to do this.
> > > >  
> > > > Is it a planned feature ??
> > >
> > > If there's no way to do it, how can it be a planned feature? :)
> > >
> > > POP was never really designed for leaving mail on the server at all, let
> > > alone keeping an index of all messages, and then comparing how long
> > > they've been in the cache or the timestamp in the header to determine if
> > > they should be deleted.  Yes other mailers have pulled off this hack,
> > > but it's really just better to use IMAP if users plan to leave the mail
> > > on the server at all.
>
> I agree that this use of POP might not be optimum.  However, sometimes
> we don't get to choose which type of server we connect to, our employer
> tells us what we get to use.
>
> Also, being able to "pull off this hack" is moving more and more towards
> the "basic needs" camp, and away from the "amazing feature" camp.  I
> realize it removes a sense of control when some other application starts
> to take over aspects of your design, but the fact is that email
> applications are not new things, and most of our users are going to be
> coming in to evolution from some other experience.  They will desire, if
> not expect, all of those features that they had before.  The more of
> them that can be provided, the happier they will be with this product.

I'd have to side with those who think this behavior in a mail client
borders on broken (imagine what would happen when more than one client
is involved), but if you (or anyone else) must have it, it should be
relatively simple to implement in an external script.  With Perl's
Net:POP3, for example, all you should have to do is iterate over all the
messages in the mailbox, check the "age" of each (according to some
suitable method), and mark those over the threshold for deletion. 
Shouldn't be more than a page or so of code, I'd guess, not that I have
any interest in finding out for sure. :)

And although I don't know much about the Evolution (Camel) POP3 code,
I'd expect it should be similarly easy; your chance of getting the
feature in are probably much better if you place the Ximian folks in the
position of rejecting/refusing to integrate a working patch, rather than
trying to convince them to implement something they see as of dubious
utility.

-- 
Russell Steinthal               Columbia Law School, Class of 2002
<rms39 columbia edu>            Columbia College, Class of 1999
<steintr nj org>                UNIX System Administrator, nj.org