isync vs mailsync
Hello, In my search for a "perfect" offline IMAP client(TM) I have looked at isync vs mailsync. Which one is better? Why is one better then the other? I have found that in fact both have limitations, so will describe the pros and cons here, in case in can help anybody else. I will not comment in detail the bug reports that have been filed for either package, to be fair you probably should read these, too. This is my first version of this, hopefully I haven't made too many mistakes... ISYNC: PROS - supports maildir. - fast, only needs to download messages that have changed. - supports reliably synchronisation of message flags, such as read, and previously read, important. - fast even if folder contains lots of messages that have already been transferred. CONS - supports only maildirs. IMHO, the use of maildirs in this application isn't really needed, and results in less efficient use of diskspace. - encodes message UID into the message filename, apparently this is against maildir specifications. - delete message on client => gets transfered again on next download. - create message on client => gets ignored by isync. MAILSYNC PROS: - supports bidirectional transfer of messages. - can delete deleted messages (not tested). - can create and delete folders (not tested). - could potentially support other services too, such as NNTP (doesn't work, see bug report). However, I imagine the slow down (see cons) would be large, as NNTP groups can be very large. CONS: - upstream author seems to be really anti-maildir, although maildir patches have been included in Debian version. - needs to retrieve the message-id of *every* message, which really slows the process down, especially on slow Internet link and/or if folder has lots of messages. - synchronisation of message flags doesn't work the way I would expect (bug has been reported). BOTH PROGRAMS: CONS: - no easy way to configure them to download messages in selected groups on remote server without duplicating a lot of configuration. I have filed bug reports on both programs, and supplied a patch to mailsync. - limited documentation. -- Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: isync vs mailsync
Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > In my search for a "perfect" offline IMAP client(TM) I have looked > at isync vs mailsync. What's wrong with Gnus? Perhaps with the Agent? I admit I've never tried disconnected IMAP with it, but I see people talking about it on the ding lists.
Re: isync vs mailsync
On 4 Sep 2001, Brian May wrote: [...] > MAILSYNC Has been in use here for 9 months without a flaw... > > PROS: [...] > - can delete deleted messages (not tested). ...this feature works here. > - can create and delete folders (not tested). Dito. [...] > CONS: > > - upstream author seems to be really anti-maildir, although maildir > patches have been included in Debian version. Just to clarify: you're talking about Mark Crispin the author of the UW-suite, which includes c-client, a mail-access library. The upstream author of mailsync is Tim Culver, who's not oposed to any such things :-) On a sidenote: I have been submerged (which nearly periodically happens in fact) by professional work the last two weeks so sorry you haven't got any reply from me yet to your reports (thanks!). The same is true for the upstream author. He's been looking for people who'd maintain (integrate patches, extend it etc.) mailsync. So if you, or anybody who's interested, wants to work on mailsync, add features, remove bugs or help maintaining the Debian packge - you are more then wellcome. *t Tomas Pospisek SourcePole - Linux & Open Source Solutions http://sourcepole.ch Elestastrasse 18, 7310 Bad Ragaz, Switzerland Tel: +41 (81) 330 77 11
Re: isync vs mailsync
Previously Brian May wrote: > ISYNC: > > CONS > > - delete message on client => gets transfered again on next download. If I remember correctly that is not true if you use mutt to mark it as deleted but don't physically delete it. isync should then do the right thing on sync and delete it at both ends. Wichert. -- _ / Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool \ | [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.liacs.nl/~wichert/ | | 1024D/2FA3BC2D 576E 100B 518D 2F16 36B0 2805 3CB8 9250 2FA3 BC2D |
Re: isync vs mailsync
Brian May wrote: > In my search for a "perfect" offline IMAP client(TM) I have looked at > isync vs mailsync. Me too, I have settled on isync for now although it's less than perfect. > - supports reliably synchronisation of message flags, such as read, > and previously read, important. This is the killer feature for me. I don't really see how a mail sync program can be useful without it. > - supports only maildirs. IMHO, the use of maildirs in this > application isn't really needed, and results in less efficient use of > diskspace. Agreed. It was a pita to have to switch to maildirs to use this program. > - encodes message UID into the message filename, apparently this is > against maildir specifications. Doesn't seem to break anything though. > - delete message on client => gets transfered again on next download. Not if you can set up your mail client properly. If using mutt, set maildir_trash. > - create message on client => gets ignored by isync. It's supposed to have support for uploading local messages now, but I have never seen it work yet. -- see shy jo
Re: isync vs mailsync
On 4 Sep 2001, Brian May wrote: > MAILSYNC > > PROS: > - supports bidirectional transfer of messages. > > - can delete deleted messages (not tested). > I can confirm this works. > - can create and delete folders (not tested). > And this. > - could potentially support other services too, such as NNTP (doesn't > work, see bug report). However, I imagine the slow down (see cons) > would be large, as NNTP groups can be very large. > Thanks to c-client also POP2, POP3, NNTP, and FTP and 'shared' (public) mailboxes. NNTP failing seems to be a bug in mailsync itself. > CONS: > > - upstream author seems to be really anti-maildir, although maildir > patches have been included in Debian version. > As Tomas pointed out, it is the c-client author who is anti-maildir. I've added a patch for maildirs but currently it is not working perfectly. Miquel Van Smoorenburg said he was working on a better one. > - needs to retrieve the message-id of *every* message, which really > slows the process down, especially on slow Internet link and/or if > folder has lots of messages. > > - synchronisation of message flags doesn't work the way I would > expect (bug has been reported). > Did you use the verbose option to see which imap commands are being sent? Depending on that it could either be a c-client or mutt problem. -- Jaldhar H. Vyas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: isync vs mailsync
On Tue, Sep 04, 2001 at 12:51:51PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote: > > - delete message on client => gets transfered again on next download. > > Not if you can set up your mail client properly. If using mutt, set > maildir_trash. I typed in "rm Maildir/cur/*" and all messages were copied over again from scratch. Nothing was deleted. This was with "-d" and expunge active. > > - create message on client => gets ignored by isync. > > It's supposed to have support for uploading local messages now, but I > have never seen it work yet. Thats what I thought, too. I really missed things up when I moved messages on the client. They ended up appearing in both groups at once. Fortunately, a side affect of these problems meant that the server hadn't been missed up. -- Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: isync vs mailsync
On Tue, Sep 04, 2001 at 02:33:47PM -0400, Jaldhar H. Vyas wrote: > Did you use the verbose option to see which imap commands are being sent? > Depending on that it could either be a c-client or mutt problem. Good point. What are the flags, and what do they mean? I can only assume (from verbose mode in isync): \Recent == new message == old unread \Seen == read Hmmm... -v is meant to "Show IMAP chatter" but it doesn't. Do I smell another bug in mailsync? -- Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: isync vs mailsync
>>>>> "Colin" == Colin Walters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Colin> Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> In my search for a "perfect" offline IMAP client(TM) I have >> looked at isync vs mailsync. Colin> What's wrong with Gnus? Perhaps with the Agent? I admit Colin> I've never tried disconnected IMAP with it, but I see Colin> people talking about it on the ding lists. Gnus seems to be slow and inefficient. In online mode, it doesn't seem to cache anything for any reason, so just reading a message you read seconds ago requires downloading it again. It also means that messages need to be downloaded again for offline reading. However, the real killer, was that I could not get offline reading to work with IMAP, only NNTP. Perhaps I was doing something wrong, not sure here. At the time I took the easy way out and concluded that IMAP wasn't supported . Despite these problems, Gnus is the only program I have seen that will highlight replies to my mail, something I find very valuable in large mailing lists like this one. Another alternative that looked good last time I tried was Mozilla, as it seems to have very good off-line mail support. However, it was buggy and often refused to enter mail groups for no good reason, so I gave up on that. Eventually I will have to try it again. -- Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: isync vs mailsync
Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >>>>> "Colin" == Colin Walters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Colin> Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> In my search for a "perfect" offline IMAP client(TM) I have > >> looked at isync vs mailsync. > > Colin> What's wrong with Gnus? Perhaps with the Agent? I admit > Colin> I've never tried disconnected IMAP with it, but I see > Colin> people talking about it on the ding lists. > > Gnus seems to be slow and inefficient. In online mode, it doesn't seem > to cache anything for any reason, so just reading a message you read > seconds ago requires downloading it again. It also means that messages > need to be downloaded again for offline reading. There's a whole ton of caching options in gnus, but I haven't yet figured out how they work. > However, the real killer, was that I could not get offline reading to > work with IMAP, only NNTP. Perhaps I was doing something wrong, not > sure here. At the time I took the easy way out and concluded that IMAP > wasn't supported . Works fine here (gnus 5.8.8) > Despite these problems, Gnus is the only program I have seen that will > highlight replies to my mail, something I find very valuable in large > mailing lists like this one. > > Another alternative that looked good last time I tried was Mozilla, as > it seems to have very good off-line mail support. However, it was > buggy and often refused to enter mail groups for no good reason, so I > gave up on that. Eventually I will have to try it again. Offline downloading for me in Mozilla broke in 0.9.3, and I've heard mail is/has been completely broken in cvs recently. I've tried almost all the options mentioned in this thread (mutt + mailsync, mozilla, gnus) and have settled on gnus. It's really nice once you get it to behave. -- Brian Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: isync vs mailsync
At 05 Sep 2001 09:43:09 +1000, Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Colin> Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> In my search for a "perfect" offline IMAP client(TM) I have > >> looked at isync vs mailsync. > > Colin> What's wrong with Gnus? Perhaps with the Agent? I admit > Colin> I've never tried disconnected IMAP with it, but I see > Colin> people talking about it on the ding lists. > > Gnus seems to be slow and inefficient. In online mode, it doesn't seem > to cache anything for any reason, so just reading a message you read > seconds ago requires downloading it again. It also means that messages > need to be downloaded again for offline reading. wanderlust (package: wl) ? It is also slow but it has nice feature including mail caching and imap disconnect mode. > Despite these problems, Gnus is the only program I have seen that will > highlight replies to my mail, something I find very valuable in large > mailing lists like this one. > > Another alternative that looked good last time I tried was Mozilla, as > it seems to have very good off-line mail support. However, it was > buggy and often refused to enter mail groups for no good reason, so I > gave up on that. Eventually I will have to try it again. wanderlust suits your purpose. I also had trouble to select imap offline cache program previously, but wanderlust took me the answer. -- gotom
Re: isync vs mailsync
>> Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Despite these problems, Gnus is the only program I have seen that will > highlight replies to my mail, something I find very valuable in large > mailing lists like this one. color index red black "~t [EMAIL PROTECTED] | ~x scrooge.chocbit.org.au" or something like that with mutt. Patterns can be much more complex than what's shown here. ~t should be clear. ~x refers to the messages that contain the given string in the References field. -- Marcelo | Item 14: Make sure base classes have virtual destructors [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Scott Meyers, Effective C++
Re: isync vs mailsync
> "Marcelo" == Marcelo E Magallon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>> Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> Despite these problems, Gnus is the only program I have seen >> that will highlight replies to my mail, something I find very >> valuable in large mailing lists like this one. Marcelo> color index red black "~t [EMAIL PROTECTED] | ~x Marcelo> scrooge.chocbit.org.au" Marcelo> or something like that with mutt. Patterns can be much Marcelo> more complex than what's shown here. ~t should be clear. Marcelo> ~x refers to the messages that contain the given string Marcelo> in the References field. Oh, Thanks for this. Not quite as sophisticated as Gnus[1] but still quite sufficient for my needs. [1] Gnus will record the message id of every outgoing E-Mail. Not only that, but it is capable of automatically saving the message id of each reply too, so the message will still be highlighted even if your message id falls off the reference id list. -- Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: isync vs mailsync
Joey Hess wrote: > > - create message on client => gets ignored by isync. > > It's supposed to have support for uploading local messages now, but I > have never seen it work yet. It actually works here! When I first tried isync (version 0.4) I was dissatisfied because this wasn't working. I wrote Michael Elkins about it, but never got a reply. With isync 0.5 it actually seems to work. Roland -- Roland Bauerschmidt
Re: isync vs mailsync
> "GOTO" == GOTO Masanori <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: GOTO> wanderlust (package: wl) ? It is also slow but it has nice GOTO> feature including mail caching and imap disconnect mode. Looks Interesting. I even found documentation in English! It seems to be a good mail reader, but I am having problems connecting using SSL/TLS. My last attempt produced an error that I need "starttls", but I can't find any "starttls" program in the Debian archive... GOTO> wanderlust suits your purpose. I also had trouble to select GOTO> imap offline cache program previously, but wanderlust took GOTO> me the answer. Yes. It looks good here. I still haven't found out how to work it properly yet (eg. I couldn't work out how to get it to download new messages for off line reading), but from what I have seen it is very good. It is just a pity that gnus won't install at the same time. I tried chaos instead, but couldn't get imap to work :-( -- Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: isync vs mailsync
Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > > - delete message on client => gets transfered again on next download.
> > Not if you can set up your mail client properly. If using mutt, set
> > maildir_trash.
> I typed in "rm Maildir/cur/*" and all messages were copied over again
> from scratch. Nothing was deleted. This was with "-d" and expunge
> active.
Well, do what Joey suggested; use the flag "deleted".
mv Maildir/cur/foo:2,S Maildir/cur/foo:2,ST
There's no way to differentiate between a totally-removed
and a never-delivered message, in a maildir, and isync
stores no external state.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED],havoc,gaeshido}.fi,{debian,wanderer}.org,stonesoft.com}
double a,b=4,c;main(){for(;++a<2e6;c-=(b=-b)/a++);printf("%f\n",c);}
Re: isync vs mailsync
On Wed, Sep 05, 2001 at 09:43:09AM +1000, Brian May wrote: > Despite these problems, Gnus is the only program I have seen that will > highlight replies to my mail, something I find very valuable in large > mailing lists like this one. btw, mutt will do that. it highlights messages sent by or to you. dunno if it looks at References: or In-Reply-To: lines for that, but it certainly uses From:, To:, and CC: headers. makes it quite easy to spot your messages and replies to them in large threads. craig -- craig sanders <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Fabricati Diem, PVNC. -- motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch
Re: isync vs mailsync
Roland Bauerschmidt wrote: > > It's supposed to have support for uploading local messages now, but I > > have never seen it work yet. > > It actually works here! When I first tried isync (version 0.4) I was > dissatisfied because this wasn't working. I wrote Michael Elkins about > it, but never got a reply. With isync 0.5 it actually seems to work. Still doesn't work for me. What IMAP server are you using? -- see shy jo
Re: isync vs mailsync
Joey Hess wrote: > Still doesn't work for me. What IMAP server are you using? courier-imap-ssl. Roland -- Roland Bauerschmidt
Re: isync vs mailsync
Roland Bauerschmidt wrote: > Joey Hess wrote: > > Still doesn't work for me. What IMAP server are you using? > > courier-imap-ssl. I guess that's the difference. The wu imapd, which I am using, tickles other isync bugs too. I should figure out how to get courier to work. -- see shy jo
