Re: read mail in mbox files

[Richard Riley]

Glyn Millington <wistanswick@linuxmail.org> writes:

> Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> writes:
>
>> Glyn Millington <wistanswick@linuxmail.org> writes:
>>
>>> Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:
>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:51:54 +0100, Richard wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Why is this a "spool" directory?
>>>>>
>>>>>> The word "spool" is throwing me. I thought "spool" meant it was
>>>>>> spooled to you and then stored in a backend .. like nnml.
>>>>> A "(news)spool" in news-related terms is usually where the
>>>>> articles are stored in a newsserver (the meaning used here).  A
>>>>> mail-spool is usually where mail is stored locally until the user
>>>>> fetches it (/var/mail or /var/spool/mail).  In the documentation
>>>>> nnml is described as the backend that most closely resembles a
>>>>> newsspool, so that is probably where the choice of word comes
>>>>> from. And perhaps also some of the confusion.
>>>> I think in the context it's incorrect but wouldnt put my mortgage
>>>> on it ...
>>>> nnml-directory is not a spool really : the var/spool source is.
>>>> And checking values now, I see, and amazingly confusing, that
>>>> ,---- | Its value is "~/.emacs.d/Mail/archive" `----
>>>> How I dont know as I set
>>>> (setq nnml-directory "~/Mail")
>>>> bah ;) I need to start all over again ...
>>> Hi Richard,
>>> Here's a snip from my .gnus file.  It may be totally irrelevant,
>>> becasue I have een smewhat confused by this discussion!! - but it
>>> may help ;-)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>>> ;,---- ;| MAIL SETTINGS AND MAIL SORTING
>>> --------------------------------------------- ;`----
>>> ; nnml is, as you know a mail backend - the nnml (I wonder if nnml
>>> stand ; for Not NorMaL) format is what results when gnus grabs mail
>>> from the ; two mail sources below. I use getmail to dump all my mail
>>> into ; /home/glyn/Mail/inbox; system mail goes to
>>> /var/spool/mail/glyn.  gnus ; grabs mail from both sources, I assume
>>> transmogrifies it by elisp-magic ; into nnml format, and then shoves
>>> it through my fancy-splitting ; set-up. (Just a fraction of that
>>> here!) I read the mail from the groups ; created by the fancy
>>> splitting - SLACKLIST, FREEBSD, FVWM etc etc
>>> (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods '((nnml "")) mail-sources
>>> ((file :path "/home/glyn/Mail/inbox") (file :path
>>> "/var/spool/mail/glyn")))
>>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for the examples. its amazing how many different ways people
>> get this going.
>>
>> My "dummy" question of the minute here is:-
>>
>> mail-sources : how does nnml know its got control of them? What about
>> other mail backends?
>
> I don't use any other mail backends.  Are you wanting to use more than
> one?  
>

I do : nnml and nnimap.

Maybe not a good idea. But somehow, in a galaxy far far away, I was
under the impression that  nnml was the easiest way to get local system
email (root/cron jobs etc). The rest I sync with gmail via offlineimap.