[Alpine-info] Dumb beginner's question

[Andrew Morgan]

On Mon, 17 Jan 2011, Matt Ackeret wrote:


> On Mon, 17 Jan 2011, Barry Landy wrote:

>> I completely second that. It is <looks for polite word... :-)> very

>> silly to have IMAP repeatedly process 34,000 messages when you want to

>> see if there is a new one.

>>

>> If you are really wedded to one huge mailbox then simply copy each

>> message from inbox to another folder (read-mail, for example) after

>> reading it.

>

> Umm, then that would mean you would have to GO INTO that other mailbox to find

> stuff.

>

> Yes, I admit this could be thought of as a limitation to alpine, but the

> lack of 'smart mailboxes' (meta searches that search many folders at once)

> is one reason I keep _most_ everything in one mailbox.  (I admittedly have

> a "suspected spam" mailbox, and a "work" mailbox..  Those, along with INBOX

> and sent-mail-* once in a while, are the main mailboxes I use.)

>

> So to be able to search for stuff, it's easier to just keep it in the INBOX.

>

> Plus, doesn't IMAP already get "just the new ones" after it's started up?

> It's really only the startup time that's really slow (~20 seconds) for me.


If your IMAP server uses a "smart" mailbox format with index files, then 
it shouldn't take 20 seconds to start up.  Cyrus and Dovecot come to mind. 
If your IMAP server uses the old "mbox" mailbox format, it will have to 
read the entire mbox file every time it starts up.

 	Andy