tell me how to do this right (mail sent to lists)

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

Hi Jeff--

On Tue 2018-10-09 17:02:05 +0200, Jeff Templon wrote:
> I can see via another imap client (in this case MailMate / OS X) that
> there are two messages in imap, both with the same messageid.  One
> example right now (printing the Subject header below):
>
> in my sent mail folder:
>
> [Physics at Veldhoven] Inschrijving/Registration Physics at Veldhoven 2019 deadline 9 November 2019
>
> and in my inbox:
>
> [pdp] [Physics at Veldhoven] Inschrijving/Registration Physics at Veldhoven 2019: deadline 9 November 2019
>
> However, in notmuch-emacs, I only see the first one.  My guess is that
> notmuch has first seen the one in "sent", indexed that, and then seeing
> the second one with the same messageId, skips it.

notmuch doesn't "skip" anything -- it just knows that they are the same
e-mail due to message-id matching.  it actually indexes both texts.  you
can see this with:

    notmuch search --output=files id:$MESSAGEID

> I'd prefer to have both, but if I have to pick one or the other, I'd
> actually prefer to have the second one, as I'd then have
>
> [ pdp ]
>
> as the start of the subject header for ALL mails to that list, and as an
> added bonus, afew (should?) then tag them with the list name making them
> easily searchable.

I'd recommend doing your tagging based on something other than a
substring of the subject line -- wouldn't tagging based on the recipient
of the message (To: or Cc:) be sufficient to group your mailing list
messages under one heading, regardless of which variant notmuch chooses
to prefer?

i recognize this doesn't answer your proximal question -- and i'd love
to hear if someone more knowledgable has a good answer for it.  i'm just
offering a workaround for what i think is your ultimate goal.

all the best,

         --dkg