Search?
Chris Game
searching all messages for a particular string within the message
text. In these days of desktop search engines for all files and text
in email, it's a bit of a shortcoming!
--
Chris Game
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the
initiative in creating the Internet." - Al Gore, March 9, 1999
NM Public
> How do people cope with large mailboxes? I can't see any way of
> searching all messages for a particular string within the message
> text. In these days of desktop search engines for all files and text
> in email, it's a bit of a shortcoming!
While viewing the MESSAGE INDEX of the mailbox, type:
Type: Meaning
===== =======
; Select
T Text
A All message text
string literal string (no wildcards or reg-exps)
On a decent IMAP server this is surprisingly fast. For example,
on the Cyrus IMAP server that I use, a search of ~50,000 messages
takes only a few seconds!
The secret is to keep all your messages in only one mailbox.
Hope this helps,
Nancy
--
Nancy McGough ~ <http://www.ii.com> ~ <http://deflexion.com>
IMAP, pine, procmail, data deflexion, infinity, and more
> > > Please keep the discussion in the group < < <
Chris Game
> On 12 Dec 2005, Chris Game wrote:
>> How do people cope with large mailboxes? I can't see any way of
>> searching all messages for a particular string within the message
>> text. In these days of desktop search engines for all files and text
>> in email, it's a bit of a shortcoming!
>
> While viewing the MESSAGE INDEX of the mailbox, type:
>
> Type: Meaning
> ===== =======
> ; Select
> T Text
> A All message text
> string literal string (no wildcards or reg-exps)
>
> On a decent IMAP server this is surprisingly fast. For example,
> on the Cyrus IMAP server that I use, a search of ~50,000 messages
> takes only a few seconds!
Yes, thanks for that, and it only took me another fifteen minutes to
work out I then had to hit 'Z' to actually find the selected (result
of search) messages buried many pages down the list!
Next question: is there a way of saving searches?
--
Chris Game
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left
to chance. -Robert R. Coveyou Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Gopi Sundaram
> Next question: is there a way of saving searches?
Sure. Set up a rule with your search conditions. Then (;)Select (R)ule
and you're home free.
--
Gopi Sundaram
http://www.zrox.net/Mail/Pine/
NM Public
> On Mon, 12 Dec 2005, Chris Game wrote:
>
>> Next question: is there a way of saving searches?
>
> Sure. Set up a rule with your search conditions. Then (;)Select
> (R)ule and you're home free.
And this saved-search feature is available in 4.62+, and is
thanks to a suggestion from Gopi -- thank you Gopi! Here are a
few saved-search tips:
* Set up your rules so they have short names, e.g., one-character
names like 'A' 'B' 'C' etc. This will make it fast to use them.
* I think a saved-search rule depends only on the CURRENT MESSAGE
CONDITIONS section of the ADD A RULE screen so set up the other
sections of the ADD A RULE screen so they do not waste any
processing power during your regular Pine use. E.g., set up the
CURRENT FOLDER CONDITIONS to point to a bogus folder that you
never use.
* Set this feature:
[X] auto-zoom-after-select
This way you don't need to type Z to zoom in on the search
results.
IMHO, saved searches, using one single jumbo mailbox, and having
a fast IMAP server, are the keys to email sanity!
Chris Game
> IMHO, saved searches, using one single jumbo mailbox, and having a
> fast IMAP server, are the keys to email sanity!
Thanks as ever, Nancy, and Gopi too.
--
Chris Game
Calm down -- it's only ones and zeroes
Erik Quaeghebeur
>
> IMHO, saved searches, using one single jumbo mailbox, and having a fast
> IMAP server, are the keys to email sanity!
I don't agree about the jumbo mailbox thing, usually I'm very efficient
using just (a large numer of) folders. It should ideally be possible to
search at all levels (message, mailbox, directory, collection,
everything). I realize this is non-trivial to implement, but it would be
a powerful feature.
Even better (and harder) would be transparent paradigm-switching:
folder-based to search-based to whatever-else (and mixing). I'll stop
dreaming now.
Erik
NM Public
I have a feeling that you and I agree Erik. I should have
qualified what I said above by saying this instead:
*Until Pine supports virtual folders, i.e. saved searches across
multiple mailboxes, the key to Pine email sanity is* saved
searches, using one single jumbo mailbox, having a fast IMAP
server, *and keywords/labels*.
With IMAP clients that support searching across multiple
mailboxes (virtual folders), e.g. Horde/IMP and Opera M2, the one
single jumbo mailbox part of this recipe for email sanity is not
essential.
Hope this makes sense,
Eduardo Chappa
:) *Until Pine supports virtual folders, i.e. saved searches across
:) multiple mailboxes, the key to Pine email sanity is* saved searches,
:) using one single jumbo mailbox, having a fast IMAP server, *and
:) keywords/labels*.
I normally prefer to keep my inbox empty and move messages to an external
folder. In order to keep my sanity I use one of my patches which allows me
to move messages to their corresponding folder, without me doing anything.
Every time I quit Pine, one of my saving rules works and saves each
message where it belongs. Even if I don't quit Pine and I just press "S",
the rule knows which folder to offer to save that message, so that I do
not have to search for the folder, or type anything. Accessing a message
is reduced to opening a folder which is not so big.
That's my way of keeping my sanity.
--
Eduardo
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