Message too large to index?

[Joost Kremers]

Hi,

I recently received a message of about 124MB (due to a large
attachment), which was synced just fine by OfflineIMAP but which wasn't
indexed by mu. (I found out about the mail because I occasionally check
my mail on my phone.)

A quick look at man mu-index taught me that there is a maximum message
size option for mu and that by default it is set to 50MB.

It's a bit unsettling to find out that mu4e may not be showing me all my
email, so I was wondering if it might be a good idea to let mu4e warn
the user when mu index finds problematic emails. Right now, mu writes
such warning messages to its log file, but that's not something I
regularly check...



--
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments

[Marcin Borkowski]

+1!

(Although sending such big emails is not a good idea in general, IMHO.)

> --
> Joost Kremers
> Life has its moments

Best,

--
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

[Dirk-Jan C. Binnema]

Hmm, `mu index` issues a warning, but inside mu4e, it's hard to have a
warning that is clear enough for a user to notice, yet is not obtrusive
(since you'd get it each time you index), and without adding extra
complexity / options etc.

So, perhaps the easiest way would be to increase the max default message
size to, say, 500Mb.

Cheers,
Dirk.

--
Dirk-Jan C. Binnema Helsinki, Finland
e:dj...@djcbsoftware.nl w:www.djcbsoftware.nl
pgp: D09C E664 897D 7D39 5047 A178 E96A C7A1 017D DA3C

[Nicolas Richard]

Marcin Borkowski <mb...@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:

> On 2016-03-11, at 23:14, Joost Kremers <joostk...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>> It's a bit unsettling to find out that mu4e may not be showing me all my
>> email, so I was wondering if it might be a good idea to let mu4e warn
>> the user when mu index finds problematic emails. Right now, mu writes
>> such warning messages to its log file, but that's not something I
>> regularly check...
>
> +1!

I also think all mails should always appear in mu4e, and big fat
warnings should be displayed everywhere if for some reason one (or more)
mail is skipped. Perhaps the warnings should come with a few suggestions
on how to remove the warning e.g. increase the limit on size of indexed
messages, or a way to remove (detach) the attachment from the mail.

Does the mu server somehow already sends the warning to mu4e ?

> (Although sending such big emails is not a good idea in general, IMHO.)

I can't agree more, but even if usually not a good idea, it can happen
(and could be an "ok" idea, e.g. if email are restricted to the company
network), and I definitely want to hear about those !

Nicolas.

[Joost Kremers]

On Sat, Mar 12 2016, Marcin Borkowski wrote:
> (Although sending such big emails is not a good idea in general, IMHO.)

I agree, but if someone decides to do so, I generally have very little
influence on their decision. I only because I'm only made aware of the
fact after the mail has been sent. ;-)

[Joost Kremers]

On Sat, Mar 12 2016, Dirk-Jan C. Binnema wrote:
> Hmm, `mu index` issues a warning, but inside mu4e, it's hard to have a
> warning that is clear enough for a user to notice, yet is not obtrusive
> (since you'd get it each time you index), and without adding extra
> complexity / options etc.

One suggestion: when mu logs any warnings, put them in a *mu-log* buffer
and change the message saying "Contacts received: xxxx" to "Contacts received:
xxxx; Warnings found, see *mu4e-log* buffer for details". Then add a
menu option to the main view "view [L]og buffer".

That would IMHO be unobtrusive buc clear enough. Besides, if you get
such a warning, you'd want to do something about it. (In my case, I used
altermime to delete the attachment after downloading it through webmail.)