Re: [Evolution] Repatriating lost emails

[Jeffrey Stedfast <fejj ximian com>]

On Tue, 2002-02-05 at 13:32, Bradley Alexander wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Quick question. I emailed a few weeks back about being able to access
> emails on my workstation from my laptop. I did get it set up, chose
> IMAP, because in my limited experience, IMAP, by default, leaves the
> messages on the server, where I could gather them later on the
> workstation. This is, for the record, the Debian build of version 1.0.1
> on Debian/sid (i386) boxes. The mailserver is running Debian/woody on a
> Sparc with Postfix.
>
> I had evo running on the laptop and it was gathering mail all right, 
> but I found out that messages were being deleted from the server. the
> engine apparently was still running on the laptop after I killed it, and
> it was still grabbing messages. I noticed I was not getting the volume
> of mail I normally did. Since it was saturday night/sunday, I thought
> this was normal, but when I posted to a mailing list and it never made
> it (and I had a 250 message from the mailserver), I started
> investigating further. I found there were directories on the laptop
> called 
>
> $HOME/evolution/mail/imap/storm defiant 
> $HOME/evolution/mail/imap/storm vorcha 

These are cache directories which are especially needed for disconnected
IMAP operation, but also used in normal IMAP operation to increase
performance.

> In the storm vorcha directory, I saw files named
>
> 803.
> 803.HEADER
>
> etc.
>
> The .HEADER file is the mailheader, which is normally the only thing
> that gets downloaded from the server. But the ###. file appears to be
> the actual message.

Right.

> My questions are thus:
>
> 1. How can I "repatriate" these messages back onto defiant? I was
> thinking along the lines of "cat *. >> mail.out", copy mail.out back to
> defiant, and possibly appending it to /var/spool/mail/storm. Would
> something along these lines work?

I suppose... I think you'll also have to prepend a "From user host date"
line to the beginning of each message though (in order to make it mbox
format at least).

> 2. I notice that pop mail in evo has an option to leave the files on the
> server. When I was setting up the piggyback from the laptop, I noticed
> this, but thought that it was because IMAP was going to leave the files
> intact on the server. What options do I have at this point? use POP and
> leave the files on the server, or am I missing a crucial piece of the
> puzzle?

POP has the "leave mail on server" option because POP is a spool
protocol which means you normally remove the message after you have
fetched it.

IMAP is not a spool protocol, thus there is no need for that option.
IMAP acts more like a normal local folder hierarchy in that mail stays
in the folders until the user deletes them.

I think you are confused (or maybe I am?). Evolution is not deletingany
messages off the server behind your back, if they are getting deleted
it's because you are hitting ^D or the delete toolbar button/menu item
and then expunging the folder (at some later point).

Jeff

-- 
Jeffrey Stedfast
Evolution Hacker - Ximian, Inc.
fejj ximian com  - www.ximian.com