merge broken mail threads

[Nicolas Bock]

On Wed, Jan 23 2019, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote: 

> On Wed 2019-01-23 08:29:05 -0700, Nicolas Bock wrote: 
> 
>> Sometimes during a lengthy discussion someone inadvertently 
>> breaks  the email thread because their mail client doesn't get 
>> it. Is  there a way to merge the two fragmented threads again 
>> with  notmuch? 
> 
> there's a manual way to do it as a janky workaround: 
> 
>  * create a bogus e-mail message that References: a message-id 
>  from each 
>    split faction. 
> 
>  * inject that message into your notmuch message store 
> 
>  * delete that message 

Nice trick :) Would this also work if I modified the reference of 
the first email that breaks the thread to point to the email it is 
quoting? I would have to get notmuch to re-read that email though 
to update the database. But this approach would not involve first 
creating a fake message and then deleting it again :)

> See also the thread on this maiing list with Subject "thread merge/split
> proposal" from back in 2016, starting at
> id:87mvp9uwi4.fsf at alice.fifthhorseman.net though i don't think any of
> that has been implemented.
>
>         --dkg