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