On Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 07:44:52AM -0800, Andrew Marks wrote:
1) Mutt erratically loses connection with Gmail and I have to
manually reconnect. Sometimes this happens rather frequently as in
multiple instances within an hour. I am confident it is not my
Internet connection, which is normally quite stable and fast. For
instance my streaming music is never interrupted, the family's TV
shows continue unimpeded, etc., but my connectivity to Gmail is
interrupted randomly. If I have both Mutt and the web interface open,
Mutt has its interruptions while the Gmail web interface appears to be
updating normally.
I'd recommend using an separate IMAP-maildir sync tool like
isync/mbsync. (https://isync.sourceforge.io). Waiting for IMAP (and even
SMTP) operations in mutt is slow (not because of mutt, but because you
are waiting for network transactions to occur). This type of setup also
enables working with mail while offline. I'll never go back after
switching to isync and a local postfix or ssmtp instance. I no longer
compile mutt with IMAP, POP, or SMTP support.(Nothing against mutt or
the devs for including this support, I recognize including support for
these protocols is good and lowers the barrier to entry for most users.)
Your response has caused me to ponder. The whole Mutt experience has been
a very educational one in that it is teaching me piecemeal more about how email
actually works, at least within my time constraints to explore/research.
So most of my pondering is centered around my end goals. For instance,
your post makes me aware that I have never considered the need for offline
access to my emails. Your advice makes a lot of sense.
Unsolicited advice: Mail (that you are through with) left on the IMAP
server is mail-debt you will have to eventually pay. I delete or archive
mail off-IMAP the moment there is no action. Combine your off-IMAP
archive with notmuch, mairix, mu, or some other indexer so you can
quickly find what you need in your vast archives.
I think I am already paying! I have accumulated a large amount of email in
my Gmail account, a fair amount I actually want to keep. I think I have
been going about this wrong. I will state my end goals and perhaps I will
get better advice for how to achieve them than my initial approach.
1) I eventually want to migrate all of my Gmail to ProtonMail. I will
probably never entirely get rid of Gmail. For one thing it makes a good
honey pot for when I must supply an email, but do not want to give out my
preferred email. But I would like to at least minimize the data they collect
on me.
My distant end goal is to separate from Google software entirely, but doing
that seems
difficult until I determine how to solve my Android phone dilemmas. But that
is not a
concern for Mutt!
I see two routes towards this migration: (a) Forwarding all Gmail to
ProtonMail and only have Mutt track ProtonMail. As I get time I will
notify everyone to use my new email address. (b) Track both accounts with
Mutt while doing the transition. What would your advice be?
2) I would like to remove all email storage from the cloud, that is,
whether Gmail or ProtonMail, once I have my mail on my local PC I want to
delete it from those accounts. What would be the best way to do this?
3) I would like my local storage of my emails to allow for me to store
certain content types in sensible folders. For example, Python Tutor emails
that I want to keep I would like to store in a Python Tutor folder, Mutt
emails in a Mutt folder, etc. Probably I would best be served by a manual,
not an automatic, moving into desired folders as I will be picky as to those
emails I would like to keep. What would be the best advice on this?
4) I would like to be able to quickly search through all locally stored
emails. I think Andrew has already offered a good solution. Does anyone
have different thoughts on this from his?
5) I would like to be able to auto-backup locally stored emails on my PC
to another hard drive on my local network. I guess this would be
facilitated by a sensible organization of my PC's email storage?
I think that is the gist of my objectives. I do wish to point out that my
upgrade to Mutt 2.0.5 has greatly enhanced the stability of my Mutt
sessions. The only glitch so far is not really Mutt's fault -- I
auto-reboot my router at 3 AM each day, which, of course, interrupts
Mutt's connection to my Gmail account. But sometimes in the morning it has
still managed to reconnect, which it never did previously under the older
Mutt version I was using. Also, I seem to have solved my issues with
cleverly embedded links not being accessible from within Mutt. A
combination of better understanding on my part and urlview has gotten me
around this. However, I am currently researching extract_url.pl as a
better replacement for urlview. And, finally, getting Mutt to notify me of
new emails via a beep still has me scratching my head. Apparently I need
to figure out how to get my terminal (GNOME Terminal 3.36.2) to access the
external speakers connected to my PC. But this is a minor issue for sure.
Thanks for everyone's thoughts to date!
--
Wishing you only the best,
boB Stepp
