Re: [Evolution] Expunging

[Svante Signell <srs kth se>]

On Thu, 2008-06-26 at 15:19 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-06-26 at 20:58 +0200, Svante Signell wrote:
> > I assume this question has been asked before, maybe it is even in some
> > FAQ. I am short of disk space and ~/.evolution is the main cause of
> > this. Trying to reduce the size of folders I delete a lot of mails, but
> > the largest folders cannot be expunged due to the lack of disk space. Is
> > there an option where I can expunge mail folders without a backup copy
> > is created (or similar happening, remaining disk is reduced before being
> > increased)?
>
> If you're talking about mbox-style folders (you don't say) then
> expunging necessarily requires making a copy, though the size of the
> copy depends on the space occupied by the remaining emails. This is
> because an mbox folder is a single large file and Linux doesn't support
> taking space away from the middle of a file. Although copying in-place
> would theoretically work, that would be dangerous if interrupted and Evo
> doesn't do it.

Yes, the mail is stored in mbox format. I have some follow-up questions:

1) Is it possible to just move one large file to somewhere else,
expunging other folders and move it back? 

2) In .evolution/cache/ I currently have 100MB, mainly contained in the
html subdirectory. Is there a way to clear this cache from evolution.
Have not found such option yet. What about just removing the files
under .../cache/html/??/ and .../cache/tmp?

3) Is it possible to specify another tmp directory than
under .evolution?

4) Can I edit the mbox folders manually, e.g. in emacs. I've done so
successfully before but it seems to be somewhat risky.

5) Where can I find a description of the set of files for each folder,
e.g. Inbox, Inbox.cmeta, Inbox.ev-summary, Inbox.ev-summary-meta,
Inbox.ibex.index, Inbox.ibex.index.data
Why so many sub-files in addition to the main one Inbox?

Thanks,
Svante
> poc