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Re: spoolfile and move clarification



On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 05:11:13PM -0500, Kyle Wheeler wrote:
> On Monday, April  6 at 04:50 PM, quoth Zhengquan Zhang:
> >> If that's your entire muttrc, it is meaningless. It would only have 
> >> any meaning if you use mbox-hooks elsewhere in your config.
> >
> > Thanks, so is there any rationale behind how to set spoolfile and mbox 
> > if we consider using getmail4 and procmail with mutt? There are so many 
> > different muttrc over the web and it is really confusing for a 
> > beginner...
> 
> Think about mutt this way: mutt is, first and foremost, a mailbox 
> viewer. It will show you the contents of a mailbox. There are some 
> hooks in there (mostly for historical reasons) for handling spoolfiles 
> and such, but unless you run your own mail server, chances are that 
> stuff is irrelevant.
Thanks for the insight, I used to think mutt is not only a mailbox
viewer.
> 
> If you tell mutt about mail that might be elsewhere (e.g. with a 
> $spoolfile setting), mutt will think you told it because you expect it 
> to DO something with that information. Don't put in information that 
> mutt doesn't need to know. So if you use getmail and procmail to 
> deliver your mail to a set of folders in your home directory, tell 
> mutt to look in those folders. You shouldn't even be using a 
> spoolfile, and mutt certainly doesn't need to be told to go looking 
> for one.
here is a snippet of my getmailrc

[destination]
type = MDA_external
path = /usr/bin/procmail

I use getmail to fetch mail from pop server and use procmail to process
the mails. I 'guess' I don't have a spoolfile for getmail since my
spoolfile in /var/mail is always empty. I also posted the question
"whether I have a spoolfile in this situation" on getmail mailing list.


> 
> The $spoolfile also specifies "what folder does mutt open when you 
> launch it". So, for example, I use something similar to this:
> 
>      set folder="imap://user@mailserver/"
>      set spoolfile=+INBOX
>      set postponed=+Drafts
>      set record=+Sent
>      unset mbox
> 
> Thus, when I launch mutt, it opens up my INBOX (i.e. $spoolfile).
> 
> Does that help?

Thank you very much Kyle, I appreciate your explanations.
> 
> ~Kyle
> -- 
> Life is too important to be taken seriously.
>                                                          -- Oscar Wilde