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Re: how not to auto-load attachments?



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On Monday, August 27 at 11:18 PM, quoth Kai Grossjohann:
>On Sat, Aug 25, 2007 at 02:00:14AM +0200, Michelle Konzack wrote:
>
>> Am 2007-08-24 13:26:29, schrieb Louis-David Mitterrand:
>> > Hi,
>> > 
>> > When using imap with mutt-1.5.16 is there a way to not automatically 
>> > load attachements when viewing the message body? 
>> 
>> No, since the attachments ARE the message body.
>
>This seems to be an oversimplification.  Actually, the message body
>consists of multiple parts, and IMAP provides mechanisms to selectively
>download some of the parts.  (It also provides mechanisms to get a list
>of parts.)

Indeed. And, to my knowledge, EVERY IMAP server supports downloading 
specific MIME-encoded body parts. Read the RFC (3501), particularly 
where it talks about the FETCH command:

     BODY[<section>]<<partial>>
              The text of a particular body section.  The section
              specification is a set of zero or more part specifiers
              delimited by periods.  A part specifier is either a part
              number or one of the following: HEADER, HEADER.FIELDS,
              HEADER.FIELDS.NOT, MIME, and TEXT.  An empty section
              specification refers to the entire message, including the
              header.

              Every message has at least one part number.
              Non-[MIME-IMB] messages, and non-multipart [MIME-IMB]
              messages with no encapsulated message, only have a part
              1.

              Multipart messages are assigned consecutive part numbers,
              as they occur in the message.  If a particular part is of
              type message or multipart, its parts MUST be indicated by
              a period followed by the part number within that nested
              multipart part.

It goes into some depth about how one might go about requesting first 
the MIME structure of a message, and then asking for just specific 
pieces (e.g. you can ask for only the TEXT/PLAIN body sections). You 
can even request substrings of each component of the messages.

I think Michelle must have confused IMAP for POP3 or something.

~Kyle
- -- 
Asking whether machines can think is like asking whether submarines 
can swim.
                                                             -- Unknown
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