[ale] how do you delete IMAP server messages and not local copies

[Ron Frazier]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your note.  I'm actually abandoning IMAP for now due to buggy 
message status processing in Eudora OSE (Open Source Edition).  This may 
affect Thunderbird too.  This is detailed in other posts.

My situation may be a bit unique in that I am on over a hundred mailing 
lists which collect information on my interests, which include Alternate 
Energy, metal working, ham radio, etc.  I specifically want these 
messages to all be saved and archived, so I can search them when I want 
to do research on these topics, kind of like my own personal Twitter.  
If something happens that's important in one of these fields, you can be 
it will be talked about on these lists.  I receive 5,000 - 10,000 
messages / month this way.  I don't even try to read them all, as I can 
barely keep up with ALE if I'm engaged in any conversations.  I cannot 
leave all those messages on the server for any long period of time as it 
would exceed my storage quota.

So, even if Eudora's IMAP subsystem wasn't buggy, I'd have to find a way 
to delete the messages from the server and keep them locally.  Some 
other people have mentioned copying them to local folders as well.  I 
may try that if I ever tackle IMAP again.

I like your do, defer, delegate, delete strategy; except that I almost 
never delete a message.  Frankly, it's usually not worth my time.  There 
are about 200 messages in my inbox right now, after having operated on 
this email program on this computer since the 24th of January.  A 
representative sample of the senders:

Audible books - messages like you have credits in your account, etc.
Barnes and Noble - latest books on sale, sometimes have coupons
Best Buy - here's something you can buy with member rewards
Blockbuster - check out the latest movie - sometimes have coupons
Currency Trading - several varieties - usually educational -  these are 
keepers
Inspirational Bible verses - these are keepers
Department of Energy - several varieties - educational - these are keepers
Various personal contacts from people such as yourself - these are keepers

The ones that are not keepers are usually commercial in nature.  Many 
times, I do wish to reference them within a few weeks after they 
arrive.  After that, they may have little meaning.  However, it's 
usually not worth my time to go back and cull through them to save a few 
MB on my hard drive every year.  Eventually, I'll take the time once to 
build a filter to banish all these to their own unique folders at the 
touch of a button.  Then, every month or so, I select all the read 
messages, hit the filter button, and they are instantly filed, but not 
deleted.

Thanks very much for the information and suggestions.

Sincerely,

Ron

On 01/31/2011 09:23 AM, Michael B. Trausch wrote:
> On Mon, 2011-01-31 at 01:34 -0500, Ron Frazier wrote:
>    
>> Hello all.  Several people have been encouraging me to use IMAP for
>> email, and I've been investigating it.  I specifically want to
>> download the messages to my local computer and have them available
>> whether I'm connected to the internet or not, as well as be able to
>> back them up.
>>      
> Every MUA that I am familiar with has a setting that triggers the
> ability to locally synchronize folders when using IMAP.  That will give
> you the ability to work offline when desired.
>
>    
>>    I want all my computers synchronized when I'm connected to the net.
>> AND, I want to be able to delete the messages from the server
>> periodically, when they accumulate to too large a number; while still
>> retaining the local copy on my machines.
>>      
> IMAP gives the ability to synchronize between the client and the server.
> To diverge the two (or more) systems defeats the point.
>
> You can archive messages, though, if you want to keep them around for
> some reason.  Otherwise, delete them when whatever action they call for
> has been performed.  Do, delegate, defer, delete: I truly believe that
> you will be very happy when you get into that habit.
>
>    
>>    I cannot seem to find any way to do that based on what I've been
>> reading.  Anybody know if that can be done?  I also read that IMAP
>> have problems synchronizing thousands of messages in a folder, which
>> is routine for me.
>>      
> Make it un-routine!
>
> Every time you open a folder in IMAP, the IMAP client has to see if the
> folder's contents have changed on the server.  So it will request the
> headers for all of the messages in the folder, and compare those to the
> ones that it has.  If you're using offline sync, it will then download
> the message bodies for all of the messages that it does not yet have,
> and add those to the local database.  You can imagine that having very
> large folders would be taxing in this situation.
>
> There is no real way to work around it; even Google's servers have
> problems with tens of thousands of messages in a single folder.  It can
> be very troublesome to work with folders when they get that large, _on a
> regular basis_.  What I do is archive everything that I don't delete
> (but am finished with).  This lumps them all together in a single
> folder, but I don't use IMAP to access that one folder---instead, I use
> the Web interface.  It's quite a bit faster.
>
> You could, however, effectively delete messages off of the server by
> moving them to a local folder on (one of) your client systems.  However,
> you lose the benefits of IMAP synchronization when you do that.
>
> 	--- Mike
>    
>    

-- 

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new messages very quickly.)

Ron Frazier

770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
linuxdude AT c3energy.com