Unexpected output of "notmuch new --quiet"

Ralph Seichter abbot at monksofcool.net
Sat Apr 20 06:21:42 PDT 2019


* Eric:

> I think that there will be lots of people (and organisations) who get
> collections of email from elsewhere and want to add them all to their
> own single collection for reference, archival, and research purposes.

And how would dropping individual mail files into "cur" instead of any
old folder limit that?

> So that those emails would be forced into the IMAP folder structure,
> making them visible (and possible distracting) there when viewed with
> a traditional mail client?

I don't know why you talk about "forced", and it is not an IMAP folder
structure anyway. I have configured Dovecot to use a Maildir store
specifically to allow Notmuch as a client in addition to IMAP. Other
storage types like Multi-dbox would be more efficient for IMAP users.

In my setup, I could circumvent Dovecot's LDA and have Postfix drop off
mail directly in that same Maildir structure, but I want to enable users
to use Sieve scripts. This works because Dovecot and Postfix have very
similar ideas about how a Maildir store should look like.

My point is: Maildir has a defined structure. I'm not against Notmuch
supporting a wider range of layouts, but I think Notmuch should not
complain about perfectly legitimate non-mail files found outside the
Maildir scope.

-Ralph


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