Ken, David, Norm,
On 09/20/2013 02:02 PM, norm(_at_)dad(_dot_)org wrote:
Ken Hornstein <kenh(_at_)pobox(_dot_)com> writes:
I'd like to switch to using nmh for email handling. I've been using
thunderbird for the last few years.
Great! Glad to get a new user! If you don't mind me asking ... how
come you decided to switch? We get a lot of people going the other way,
so I am curious why you decided to go against the tide. Not that I'm
complaining!
I'm a programmer. I work with plain-text files and plain-text editors
on the command line. I used Thunderbird at my new job (four years ago)
because it was most convenient at the time, but now I want a real mail
client : -) Once I'm familiar with nmh, I will probably move to using
it in emacs.
I understand the nmh mail format is a little different from mbox format
or maildir format. Is there any conversion utility out there? I've
searched but only found utilities for people going the other way.
So, it's not obvious ... but the "inc" utility does that. It will take
a mbox file (or, I belive, a Maildir dropbox if you have a new enough
version) and incorporate it into a nmh folder.
Great!
Alternatively, a pointer to the documentation of what the nmh format
actually is would be helpful. I haven't found a concise description
yet.
The man page mh-mail(5) should describe that. Basically, each message
is in it's own file, each folder is a directory. Messages have
filenames that are all numbers. Each message is pretty much straight
RFC 2822 format, except using Unix newline conventions. Although
looking at the man page now, I see that it's a bit out of date; for
example, messages nowadays are not limited to 7-bit ASCII in the body.
Similar to maildir, maybe. I'm a bit less familiar with maildir.
Would I be able to read the Thunderbird files and write them out as nmh
ones? No point keeping the old format around.
Also, I need nmh to get email by imap. How can I configure that? Or am
I supposed to use fetchmail for that?
_If_ your IMAP server also supports POP, inc can incorporate messages
from that. Otherwise, fetchmail is probably the best solution.
Ok, fetchmail it is.
For most purposes, especially to get started, you don't need to know most of
what's in mh-mail(5).
It might be added that if you are using a Unix like system, such as Linux,
BSD,
Macintosh, or Cgywin, then you can operate on nmh messages just as though they
are Unix files -- which indeed they are -- and using Unix commands such mv, ls
and cp. And you can inspect and modify them using your favorite text editor.
Yep, looking forward to it.
I'm doing this in my spare time (of which I have negative quantities) so
it will take a while.
Thanks again for your quick, helpful and friendly reponses.
--
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