Hi Michael,
Weeellll ... I mean, we have the command-line INTERFACE for that, I
think; pick(1) seems like the obvious answer.
okay. But, I want it to operate across "all" folders.
I realize that the definition of "all" is pretty loose.
So I'll say everything in ~/Mail
folders(1) can give you that list. For each of them, with $f the folder
name, build an index with something like
scan -width 0 -forma "%{message-id} $f %(msg)" +$f last:20 |
sed 's/^ /- /'
This can be sorted and used with join(1), egrep(1), etc. It only reads
the headers of each email's file, not the body, and is quite quick once
they're cached in RAM.
1) updating the reference in the right place when moving/filing
messages. (building)
You might find it easier to have inotify(7) watch directory hierarchies
of interest rather than try and modifying all the things that might
cause the index to diverge. Or just see if the index can be a useful
first approximation that works in 99.9% of cases, falling back on a
search when it doesn't, and re-building the whole index periodically.
--
Cheers, Ralph.