Re: [Evolution] Deleting attachments

[Patrick O'Callaghan <poc usb ve>]

On Fri, 2006-09-15 at 15:53 -0400, Jeffrey Stedfast wrote: 
> On Fri, 2006-09-15 at 15:33 -0400, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > On Fri, 2006-09-15 at 14:29 -0400, Jeffrey Stedfast wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2006-09-15 at 12:42 -0400, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > > > On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 10:56 -0400, Jeffrey Stedfast wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, 2006-09-12 at 16:18 -0400, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > > > > > AFAIK, no there isn't, but it would be nice.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > No doubt purists will object that this constitutes modifying the
> > > message
> > > > > > (and invalidating any digital signatures it might have). I still
> > > think
> > > > > > it would be a Good Thing (TM) though.
> > > > >
> > > > > it's also not possible to do for all mail store types.
> > > >
> > > > It's possible with mbox and IMAP.
> > >
> > > oh really? please elaborate :)
> >
> > Existence proof: IMP (widely used IMAP webmail client) does it.
>
> The IMAP protocol does not provide any way of doing this. IMP must go
> behind the IMAP server's back, which is something a client cannot do.

I've done some testing with IMP to see exactly what it does. It's fairly
simple: IMP gets the message MIME structure from the server (the IMAP
protocol provides for this) and then creates a new message with a short
comment substituted for the deleted attachment. It then creates a new
message on the server (using IMAP APPEND I think, just as Evo does with
Post New Message to Folder and presumably Save Draft) and deletes the
old one. The new message is identical to the old one (same headers,
Message-ID etc.) except for a new UUID.

It does not "go behind the IMAP server's back".

poc