Emacs for email: Rmail v VM v Gnus

[James Freer]

I'm just learning about emacs and currently use Alpine for mail.
Mainly due to it's speed; i gave up with Thunderbird and Evolution as
they're too slow for imap... Mutt i did get it set up but it's too
configurable for my liking.

As i'm only after something simple i was thinking about Rmail. Since i
last read the wiki (a while back now) it would appear that Rmail has
been improved for Emacs 23 & 24 being much better for imap and
offering conversation threads.

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Rmail

But reading the info i've got a bit confused - one place it says use
MailMode and another use Fetchmail and Sendmail [also one's got
Postfix, Exim, Courier to choose from]. What is best?

Instructions are a bit more straightforward for VM and Gnus.

I'd be grateful if someone could put me right on setting up Rmail, and
perhaps if someone has experimented with all three give their
feedback. Basically i want to try each and decide which i'd prefer.
Starting to use emacs as my editor it seems appropriate to use a mail
client within it.

thanks
james

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> James Freer <jesse...@gmail.com> writes:

> But reading the info i've got a bit confused - one place it says use
> MailMode and another use Fetchmail and Sendmail [also one's got Postfix,
> Exim, Courier to choose from]. What is best?

I use this:


Gmail -> Fetchmail -> Procmail -> SIEVE -> Dovecot (mdbox store)

Gnus

Postfix -> Gmail

Works beautifully, but I do need to keep group sizes below 40k messages (using
expiry to move them to archive groups) in order to keep it performing fast.

John

[James Freer]

Thanks for the reply. The first line i take it is for Rmail?

james

[Francesco Mazzoli]

Sorry if I sidetrack the conversation a bit, but I just want to
suggest Wanderlust, which has worked beautifully for me.

If your goal is to read mail via IMAP, I think WL is the best
solution, and also the simplest, in the sense that you won't need
anything else apart from wanderlust (on the other hand, configuring WL
itself is a bit of an adventure).

--
Francesco * Often in error, never in doubt

[harven]

I have experimented with Gnus, and found it not so easy to set up.
It has a lot of features and does not behave like a standard mail reader
by default. If you have used alpine before and are willing to spend some time
configuring gnus (say 1/2 hr), you may want to look at the emacs wiki
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GnusAndPine
where it is explained how to make gnus behave more like pine.

Sincerely,
--
Harven

[James Freer]

Thanks I read about WL and it does look rather easier to me to set up
than the others.

I wanted to try each of them but does anyone use Rmail? if not why
not? As i mentioned in the first post it does seem to have had a
revamp recently as it was claimed it copes with conversation threads.

james

[Filipp Gunbin]

James Freer <jesse...@gmail.com> writes:

...

>
> I wanted to try each of them but does anyone use Rmail? if not why
> not? As i mentioned in the first post it does seem to have had a
> revamp recently as it was claimed it copes with conversation threads.

I recently tried Rmail and it turned out that it is what I want. I was a
Gnus user for some time (and still use it for reading news) - it is
actually not hard at all to setup it for imap (just remember to use
secondary select methods for everything!). But Rmail is much more
convenient for me.

I use fetchmail to get mail from my IMAP server (I like keeping
everything local because of access speed and because this way I have a
single place of storage even with multiple remote accounts). My
~/.fetchmailrc looks like this:

poll <server> protocol imap authenticate password username <username>
password <password> ssl folder INBOX mda "/usr/bin/procmail -d %T"

Then simply M-x rmail.

I have also patched Rmail a little to render HTML mail with emacs-w3m (I
didn't find a standard way to render HTML in Rmail).

--
Filipp Gunbin

[Jeremy Nickurak]

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 12:19 AM, Filipp Gunbin <fgu...@fastmail.fm> wrote:

I use fetchmail to get mail from my IMAP server (I like keeping
everything local because of access speed and because this way I have a
single place of storage even with multiple remote accounts). My
~/.fetchmailrc looks like this:

If you like keeping a local copy of your mail anyways, you may want to consider looking at notmuch: http://notmuchmail.org/ , for which the most developed client is emacs-based.

[James Freer]

Hi Filipp

I much appreciated your reply but i'm still struggling with some
basics hence why i haven't replied earlier. Reading the emacs.pdf i am
hoping to set up Rmail 'remotely' - that is [as i understand it like i
have Alpine... using imap i am just using the email client to 'look'
straight at the server without downloading headers or the entire
message - use two machines so downloading mail doesn't seem the right
approach. Basically avoiding the adverts from the webmail interface
and hopefully a little customising to my liking and having a full
screen for reading mail. I hope to use the trmail [thread messages]
programme listed on Emacswiki.

While stating about movemail in synaptic Xubuntu 10.04 [hoping to get
this sorted out before i upgrade!] there is mailutils and
mailutils-imap4d (this i think is the one i need to use for virtual
mail domains which i think is what gmail is).

On 5 July 2012 07:19, Filipp Gunbin <fgu...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> James Freer <jesse...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> ...
>>
>> I wanted to try each of them but does anyone use Rmail? if not why
>> not? As i mentioned in the first post it does seem to have had a
>> revamp recently as it was claimed it copes with conversation threads.
>
> I recently tried Rmail and it turned out that it is what I want. I was a
> Gnus user for some time (and still use it for reading news) - it is
> actually not hard at all to setup it for imap (just remember to use
> secondary select methods for everything!). But Rmail is much more
> convenient for me.

what do you mean with 'secondary select methods for everything'

> I use fetchmail to get mail from my IMAP server (I like keeping
> everything local because of access speed and because this way I have a
> single place of storage even with multiple remote accounts). My
> ~/.fetchmailrc looks like this:

Exim is listed as a dependency with mailutils, can that be used?

> poll <server> protocol imap authenticate password username <username>
> password <password> ssl folder INBOX mda "/usr/bin/procmail -d %T"
>
> Then simply M-x rmail.
>
> I have also patched Rmail a little to render HTML mail with emacs-w3m (I
> didn't find a standard way to render HTML in Rmail).
>
> --
> Filipp Gunbin

sorry if i seem lacking but i don't find the emacswiki or the
emacs.pdf easy to interpret.

thanks
james

[Francesco Mazzoli]

At Sun, 8 Jul 2012 22:50:46 +0100,

James Freer wrote:
> I much appreciated your reply but i'm still struggling with some
> basics hence why i haven't replied earlier. Reading the emacs.pdf i am
> hoping to set up Rmail 'remotely' - that is [as i understand it like i
> have Alpine... using imap i am just using the email client to 'look'
> straight at the server without downloading headers or the entire
> message

I don't think Rmail can do that. Wanderlust, Gnus and Mew do it, and from my
(little) experience Wanderlust does it best.

> use two machines so downloading mail doesn't seem the right
> approach. Basically avoiding the adverts from the webmail interface and
> hopefully a little customising to my liking and having a full screen for
> reading mail. I hope to use the trmail [thread messages] programme listed on
> Emacswiki.

The alternative is to use something like offlineimap or similar software that
synchronises IMAP folders with some local storage (in the case of offlineimap,
Maildir).

[Filipp Gunbin]

Hi James,

James Freer <jesse...@gmail.com> writes:
> Hi Filipp

>
> I much appreciated your reply but i'm still struggling with some
> basics hence why i haven't replied earlier. Reading the emacs.pdf i am
> hoping to set up Rmail 'remotely' - that is [as i understand it like i
> have Alpine... using imap i am just using the email client to 'look'
> straight at the server without downloading headers or the entire

> message - use two machines so downloading mail doesn't seem the right

> approach. Basically avoiding the adverts from the webmail interface
> and hopefully a little customising to my liking and having a full
> screen for reading mail. I hope to use the trmail [thread messages]
> programme listed on Emacswiki.

Rmail cannot do that, at least in Emacs 23.4 which I'm using.

If you want direct IMAP access, you can use any of the other, more
advanced, email clients for Emacs (I tried only Gnus and it worked well,
as I've written).

The reason why I use email downloading is that I like to think about the
mailbox as about the real-world mailbox, where you receive your letters,
take them out immediately as you check it and never store there
again. You can archive them in some other place, or just take all the
needed information and throw away. Rmail allows to archive messages
conveniently (see "(emacs) Rmail Files" and "(emacs) Rmail Output" info
nodes).

BTW, why reading a pdf when you have info in emacs? C-h i g (emacs) Rmail RET
will give you the right info node.

>> I recently tried Rmail and it turned out that it is what I want. I was a
>> Gnus user for some time (and still use it for reading news) - it is
>> actually not hard at all to setup it for imap (just remember to use
>> secondary select methods for everything!). But Rmail is much more
>> convenient for me.
>
> what do you mean with 'secondary select methods for everything'

In Gnus, you can configure one primary select method and any number of
secondary select methods. They differ in the way you work with them, but
both select some messages from some place (this is defined by the
backend). For me it was unclear what the difference is, so I configured
my IMAP servers and NNTP servers as separate secondary select methods,
without using the primary.

>
>> I use fetchmail to get mail from my IMAP server (I like keeping
>> everything local because of access speed and because this way I have a
>> single place of storage even with multiple remote accounts). My
>> ~/.fetchmailrc looks like this:
>
> Exim is listed as a dependency with mailutils, can that be used?

I didn't work with it. I'm working on Cygwin, and the best tools
available here are, afaik, fetchmail + procmail, which I'm using now
(for example, last time I checked, the maildrop was not available).

--
Filipp Gunbin

[chad]

On 4 July 2012 02:35, John Wiegley <johnw <at> newartisans.com> wrote:

>>>>>> James Freer <jessejazza <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>> But reading the info i've got a bit confused - one place it says use
>> MailMode and another use Fetchmail and Sendmail [also one's got Postfix,
>> Exim, Courier to choose from]. What is best?
>

> I use this:
>
>
> Gmail -> Fetchmail -> Procmail -> SIEVE -> Dovecot (mdbox store)
>
> Gnus
>
> Postfix -> Gmail

I used to use something similar, but with rmail in the middle rather
than Gnus (For James, the first part is for gathering mail from the
servers, the middle is for reading it, and the last is for sending it.
These particular pieces work together but are independent and
exchangeable.) I switched to MH for a while, and then moved to a
`fancy' client with graphical display and automatic spam sorting when
I left the hacker/programmer/sysadmin game (and cut my daily email
influx by a few thousand messages).

If you want to use emacs and keep your mail on the server, you
probably want to look into Wanderlust. Gnus can do it also (the things
Gnus *can't* do form a frighteningly small list), but it sounds like
you've already looked into the beast and decided to hold off.

If you don't mind moving to keep your email locally, your options
expand quite a bit. In addition to Gnus, you can try rmail, mh-e, and
VM. There are upsides and downsides to each approach, which we could
discuss, but it sounds like you're pretty sure you want to keep
everything on the server.

(For what it's worth: Gnus has sub-bell assemblies on its recursive
whistles. Rmail is extremely simple, but has trouble with lots of mail
(in my experience). MH-e lets you use nmh, keeping your mail local in
an extremely flexible one-message-per-file structure. I never used
VM.)

I hope that helps,
*Chad

[James Freer]

I've been busy this past week on other things but in the evenings i
didn't get VM or Gnus to work. I wanted to try each of them and then
make a decision. I'm going to give it another go this w/e, carefully
go through the manual again and if i've missed something i'll ask for
help. As to which app i suppose i like to keep things simple and i
suppose i have a preference for using Gnus as that's what is shipped
with emacs [perhaps i'm just old fashioned!]. I use xubuntu as it does
lots of things simply but effectively e.g. Bulk rename for renaming
all those photos... i just love compared with Krename which has got
rather bloated and full of eye candy - gives you an idea of what i'm
like!

As for having mail locally or on the server - i belong to a lot of dog
groups, classic car and IT groups and thus most of the mail i like to
skim through - 'flag' things of interest and delete the rest. If one
uses POP i presume one uses quite a lot of broadband download
allowance on mail that one isn't going to keep. I have 5 email
addresses and using POP for my personal mail could be worth
considering. But i've used IMAP up till now saving important emails to
pdf as backup just in case they're lost on the server [not that that
has ever happened]. I thought that POP has rather been superseeded by
IMAP [providers like Yahoo only allow POP but i can't see why they
should have that policy]. I can see that POP is a choice for those
that want to save all business mail [or such like] on their hard
drive.

thanks
james

[James Freer]

Perhaps i should add - what is the best way to set up email for linux users?

If one is upgrading with the 6 month release or annually even
downloading the headers with IMAP on Thunderbird or Evolution takes a
good while. I think they are both so slow i don't want to bother.

By comparison with the GUI ones the text email clients download like
'lightning'. Alpine is the fastest i have used and i only use it
remotely so i don't even have to set it up... after installing Alpine
just copy over the passfile and pinerc. But Alpine doesn't do threads
very well and as i'm intending to use emacs from now on... one of its
email clients seems a logical approach.

james

[Bill Wohler]

James Freer <jesse...@gmail.com> writes:

> I'd be grateful if someone could put me right on setting up Rmail, and
> perhaps if someone has experimented with all three give their
> feedback. Basically i want to try each and decide which i'd prefer.
> Starting to use emacs as my editor it seems appropriate to use a mail
> client within it.

I use fetchmail, procmail, MH-E.

MH-E documentation is in info or in
http://mh-e.sourceforge.net/manual/html/.

--
Bill Wohler <woh...@newt.com> aka <Bill....@nasa.gov>
http://www.newt.com/wohler/
GnuPG ID:610BD9AD

[James Freer]

I appreciate your replies but i haven't got far trying them out as i'm
having the central heating done and a number of domestic stuff.

I would be grateful if someone could clarify a few points
- vm seems to happlily install on emacs 23 [i'm just experimenting at
present before i upgrade to xubuntu 12.04 which has emacs 24].
- Gnus wants to uninstall emacs 23 and install emacs 22 as does mh-e.
- wl ok on emacs 23

Is vm revised more than Gnus and mh-e? My compiling efforts weren't so
hot last time i tried so i'd prefer to stay with what's in the repos.
If these apps are more feature rich why does Rmail remain as the
default mail reader?

thanks
james

[Jason Earl]

On Thu, Aug 02 2012, James Freer wrote:

> On 31 July 2012 06:45, Bill Wohler <woh...@newt.com> wrote:
>> James Freer <jesse...@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> I'd be grateful if someone could put me right on setting up Rmail,
>>> and perhaps if someone has experimented with all three give their
>>> feedback. Basically i want to try each and decide which i'd prefer.
>>> Starting to use emacs as my editor it seems appropriate to use a
>>> mail client within it.
>>
>> I use fetchmail, procmail, MH-E.
>>
>> MH-E documentation is in info or in
>> http://mh-e.sourceforge.net/manual/html/.
>>
>> --
>> Bill Wohler <woh...@newt.com> aka <Bill....@nasa.gov>
>
> I appreciate your replies but i haven't got far trying them out as i'm
> having the central heating done and a number of domestic stuff.
>
> I would be grateful if someone could clarify a few points - vm seems
> to happlily install on emacs 23 [i'm just experimenting at present
> before i upgrade to xubuntu 12.04 which has emacs 24]. - Gnus wants
> to uninstall emacs 23 and install emacs 22 as does mh-e. - wl ok on
> emacs 23

Gnus is included in Emacs 23. My guess is that your packaging system is
downgrading Emacs so that it can install its own copy of Gnus. The
version of Gnus that comes with Emacs 23 is probably what you want.
Unless, of course, you want to use the newly release Emacs 24.

> Is vm revised more than Gnus and mh-e? My compiling efforts weren't so
> hot last time i tried so i'd prefer to stay with what's in the repos.
> If these apps are more feature rich why does Rmail remain as the
> default mail reader?

If you want something that is easy to install then Gnus has the
advantage of coming pre-installed on recent copies of GNU Emacs. The
problem with Gnus (if there is a problem) is that it is so ridiculously
flexible that it can be difficult to configure.

Personally, I think that it is worth the effort, but not everyone feels
the same way.

Jason

[Sivaram Neelakantan]

On Fri, Aug 03 2012,Jason Earl wrote:


[snipped 38 lines]

> If you want something that is easy to install then Gnus has the
> advantage of coming pre-installed on recent copies of GNU Emacs. The
> problem with Gnus (if there is a problem) is that it is so ridiculously
> flexible that it can be difficult to configure.
>
> Personally, I think that it is worth the effort, but not everyone feels
> the same way.

I'd have to say, you have to be daft to use Gnus, which is a sort of
compliment....in a different way.

I don't know why I use Gnus but I do know that if I use some other
mail client, I feel unhappy with the workflow that the new mail client
imposes on me. So I stick to Gnus. :-)

As others will attest, Gnus works; its terminology is not exactly
mainstream (heck, if you're using Emacs, you're already a hippie) and
the documentation is huge for a mail client. It sure ain't Apple(TM)
for user friendliness at first. But you keep hammering at it, one day
you will get it; Exhausted by the sunk cost, you will stick to Gnus
for the rest of your email life.

Trust me, that happens. Look at this crowd on this list! :-)

Or me.

sivaram
--

[James Freer]

On 3 August 2012 17:20, Sivaram Neelakantan <nsivar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 03 2012,Jason Earl wrote:
>
>
> [snipped 38 lines]
>

>> If you want something that is easy to install then Gnus has the
>> advantage of coming pre-installed on recent copies of GNU Emacs. The
>> problem with Gnus (if there is a problem) is that it is so ridiculously
>> flexible that it can be difficult to configure.
>>
>> Personally, I think that it is worth the effort, but not everyone feels
>> the same way.
>

> I'd have to say, you have to be daft to use Gnus, which is a sort of
> compliment....in a different way.
>
> I don't know why I use Gnus but I do know that if I use some other
> mail client, I feel unhappy with the workflow that the new mail client
> imposes on me. So I stick to Gnus. :-)
>
> As others will attest, Gnus works; its terminology is not exactly
> mainstream (heck, if you're using Emacs, you're already a hippie) and
> the documentation is huge for a mail client. It sure ain't Apple(TM)
> for user friendliness at first. But you keep hammering at it, one day
> you will get it; Exhausted by the sunk cost, you will stick to Gnus
> for the rest of your email life.
>
> Trust me, that happens. Look at this crowd on this list! :-)
>
> Or me.
>
> sivaram

I don't doubt you for a moment. I think the Gnus documentation is
excellent... but really too advanced for my needs. I just want
something as easy as Thunderbird or similar to set up - just enter in
the pop/imap and smtp bits... then use.

james

[James Freer]

On 3 August 2012 21:22, James Freer <jesse...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3 August 2012 17:20, Sivaram Neelakantan <nsivar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, Aug 03 2012,Jason Earl wrote:
>>
>>
>> [snipped 38 lines]
>>

>>> If you want something that is easy to install then Gnus has the
>>> advantage of coming pre-installed on recent copies of GNU Emacs. The
>>> problem with Gnus (if there is a problem) is that it is so ridiculously
>>> flexible that it can be difficult to configure.
>>>
>>> Personally, I think that it is worth the effort, but not everyone feels
>>> the same way.
>>

>> I'd have to say, you have to be daft to use Gnus, which is a sort of
>> compliment....in a different way.
>>
>> I don't know why I use Gnus but I do know that if I use some other
>> mail client, I feel unhappy with the workflow that the new mail client
>> imposes on me. So I stick to Gnus. :-)
>>
>> As others will attest, Gnus works; its terminology is not exactly
>> mainstream (heck, if you're using Emacs, you're already a hippie) and
>> the documentation is huge for a mail client. It sure ain't Apple(TM)
>> for user friendliness at first. But you keep hammering at it, one day
>> you will get it; Exhausted by the sunk cost, you will stick to Gnus
>> for the rest of your email life.
>>
>> Trust me, that happens. Look at this crowd on this list! :-)
>>
>> Or me.
>>
>> sivaram
>
> I don't doubt you for a moment. I think the Gnus documentation is
> excellent... but really too advanced for my needs. I just want
> something as easy as Thunderbird or similar to set up - just enter in
> the pop/imap and smtp bits... then use.
>
> james

What i should have added is that i want the email client to be faster
than the GUI ones and as i'm learning emacs it seems logical to use
what's on offer [but without too much setting up!]

james

[Peter Münster]

On Fri, Aug 03 2012, James Freer wrote:

> I just want something as easy as Thunderbird or similar to set up -
> just enter in the pop/imap and smtp bits... then use.

No problem with Gnus: just accept the default settings.

--
Peter

[Laurent Hoeltgen]

On 08/03/2012 10:35 PM, James Freer wrote:
> On 3 August 2012 21:22, James Freer <jesse...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 3 August 2012 17:20, Sivaram Neelakantan <nsivar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Fri, Aug 03 2012,Jason Earl wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> [snipped 38 lines]
>>>

>>>> If you want something that is easy to install then Gnus has the
>>>> advantage of coming pre-installed on recent copies of GNU Emacs. The
>>>> problem with Gnus (if there is a problem) is that it is so ridiculously
>>>> flexible that it can be difficult to configure.
>>>>
>>>> Personally, I think that it is worth the effort, but not everyone feels
>>>> the same way.
>>>

>>> I'd have to say, you have to be daft to use Gnus, which is a sort of
>>> compliment....in a different way.
>>>
>>> I don't know why I use Gnus but I do know that if I use some other
>>> mail client, I feel unhappy with the workflow that the new mail client
>>> imposes on me. So I stick to Gnus. :-)
>>>
>>> As others will attest, Gnus works; its terminology is not exactly
>>> mainstream (heck, if you're using Emacs, you're already a hippie) and
>>> the documentation is huge for a mail client. It sure ain't Apple(TM)
>>> for user friendliness at first. But you keep hammering at it, one day
>>> you will get it; Exhausted by the sunk cost, you will stick to Gnus
>>> for the rest of your email life.
>>>
>>> Trust me, that happens. Look at this crowd on this list! :-)
>>>
>>> Or me.
>>>
>>> sivaram
>>
>> I don't doubt you for a moment. I think the Gnus documentation is

>> excellent... but really too advanced for my needs. I just want

>> something as easy as Thunderbird or similar to set up - just enter in
>> the pop/imap and smtp bits... then use.
>>

>> james
>
> What i should have added is that i want the email client to be faster
> than the GUI ones and as i'm learning emacs it seems logical to use
> what's on offer [but without too much setting up!]
>
> james
>

Hi,

this has probably been mentioned before, but did you have a look at the
wanderlust e-mail client? I've tried both gnus and wanderlust and found
wanderlust a bit more intuitive for someone who has been using
thunderbird et al. in the past. Further, it took me much less time to
configure wanderlust to my (rather simple) needs than gnus.

Regards,
Laurent

[Bill Wohler]

Ditto for MH-E. Both Emacs 23 and 24 come with the most recent version
of MH-E, I believe.

I take it you're not using Debian; MH-E in squeeze depends on emacs23 |
emacsen.

>
>> Is vm revised more than Gnus and mh-e? My compiling efforts weren't so
>> hot last time i tried so i'd prefer to stay with what's in the repos.
>> If these apps are more feature rich why does Rmail remain as the
>> default mail reader?
>
> If you want something that is easy to install then Gnus has the
> advantage of coming pre-installed on recent copies of GNU Emacs. The
> problem with Gnus (if there is a problem) is that it is so ridiculously
> flexible that it can be difficult to configure.
>
> Personally, I think that it is worth the effort, but not everyone feels
> the same way.
>
> Jason
>

--
Bill Wohler <woh...@newt.com> aka <Bill....@nasa.gov>

[Jeremiah Dodds]

Peter Münster <pml...@free.fr> writes:

> On Fri, Aug 03 2012, James Freer wrote:
>

>> I just want something as easy as Thunderbird or similar to set up -
>> just enter in the pop/imap and smtp bits... then use.
>

> No problem with Gnus: just accept the default settings.

Funnily enough, it took me a couple failed attempts and quite a bit of
gathering emacs experience to be able to set up gnus (mostly for email)
easily. When I did it, I was like "wait, that's all I needed to do? WTF
was wrong with me before?" Of course, I couldn't remember wtf was wrong
with me before.

That said, I'm not sure how gnus compares to GUI clients wrt speed, but
it's certainly not regarded as a "speedy" mail reader...

--
Jeremiah Dodds

github : https://github.com/jdodds
freenode : exhortatory

[James Freer]

On 4 August 2012 20:21, Jeremiah Dodds <jeremia...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Peter Münster <pml...@free.fr> writes:
>
>> On Fri, Aug 03 2012, James Freer wrote:
>>
>>> I just want something as easy as Thunderbird or similar to set up -
>>> just enter in the pop/imap and smtp bits... then use.
>>
>> No problem with Gnus: just accept the default settings.
>
> Funnily enough, it took me a couple failed attempts and quite a bit of
> gathering emacs experience to be able to set up gnus (mostly for email)
> easily. When I did it, I was like "wait, that's all I needed to do? WTF
> was wrong with me before?" Of course, I couldn't remember wtf was wrong
> with me before.

That's a good point. The fastest mail reader would probably be the simplest

> That said, I'm not sure how gnus compares to GUI clients wrt speed, but
> it's certainly not regarded as a "speedy" mail reader...
>

> Jeremiah Dodds

which would suit me... so out of Gnus, WL, VM and MH-E -- which [has
anyone actually tried each of them].

james

[Suvayu Ali]

Hi Gnus users,

On Sat, Aug 04, 2012 at 03:21:04PM -0400, Jeremiah Dodds wrote:
> Peter M�nster <pml...@free.fr> writes:
>
> > On Fri, Aug 03 2012, James Freer wrote:
> >
> >> I just want something as easy as Thunderbird or similar to set up -
> >> just enter in the pop/imap and smtp bits... then use.
> >
> > No problem with Gnus: just accept the default settings.
>
> Funnily enough, it took me a couple failed attempts and quite a bit of
> gathering emacs experience to be able to set up gnus (mostly for email)
> easily. When I did it, I was like "wait, that's all I needed to do? WTF
> was wrong with me before?" Of course, I couldn't remember wtf was wrong
> with me before.
>

> That said, I'm not sure how gnus compares to GUI clients wrt speed, but
> it's certainly not regarded as a "speedy" mail reader...
>

I saw all the Gnus love on this list and elsewhere, and decided to try
it when I was in search of an email client that does what I want.

These were my needs:

1. ability to read mail directories (synced with OfflineIMAP)
2. fast and responsive
3. easily searchable

With regards to (1), I had several issues. I found it ridiculous that
Gnus inflates my maildir by almost 100% to be able to function! One
example:

323M org-mode/
127M org-mode/.nnmaildir/

The fact that it uses it's own message flags instead of the standard
maildir flags was also a hurdle. With regards to speed (2), it doesn't
come close to any of the text based clients like mutt. Given my
experience with (1) and (2), I didn't look at searchability.

In the end, I adopted mutt + emacsclient. I think for searching, I'll
go with notmuch. I would surely like to use Gnus, primarily because
it's in Emacs. Specially I would like to use links to emails in
org-mode documents. If someone has suggestions, I would be happy to
try.

Just my 2�

--
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.

[dustin.h...@gmail.com]

Just try Gnus. You already have it, and have nothing whatsoever to
lose. Beyond what others have already said about most likely feeling
swamped by all the functionality, it will certainly seem absolutely
bizzare to use a newsreader for your email as the manual goes through
great pains to warn you. You most likely will not like it, but a lot of
people do. No one can say what's right for you, so just see what it's
like.

That being said, I found VM to be a very nice and instantly comfortable
environment indeed for IMAP-centric email. That was until I discovered
RMAIL is a very pleasant and streamlined environment, and is the
absolute right tool for me, paired with getmail (as opposed to fetchmail
as others have said) automatically retreiving periodically via a
cronjob. But as you've said your needs are different.

Don't be afraid to explore new environments :)

[Rémi Letot]

Suvayu Ali <fatkasuv...@gmail.com> writes:

>
> I saw all the Gnus love on this list and elsewhere, and decided to try
> it when I was in search of an email client that does what I want.
>
> These were my needs:
>
> 1. ability to read mail directories (synced with OfflineIMAP)
> 2. fast and responsive
> 3. easily searchable

Hi,

I'm a bit late on this, but have you considered adding a local imap
server in the mix ?

Lots of people seem to prefer using gnus nnimap + a local dovecot to
access maildir folders.

HTH,
--
Rémi

[Suvayu Ali]

Hi R�mi,

As a matter of fact, I did. I need to have access to my emails offline,
hence my choice of using OfflineIMAP. OfflineIMAP docs say imap -> imap
sync is still experimental. Moreover I looked at setting up dovecot,
the configuration seemed non-trivial. Also since for search I was
looking at notmuch, maildirs seemed to fit the bill best. This also
allows me to write simple scripts for things like notification.

> --
> R�mi

Thanks for your thoughts,

[Monte Stevens]

On Sat, Aug 04, 2012 at 11:50:29PM +0200, Suvayu Ali wrote:

> These were my needs:
>
> 1. ability to read mail directories (synced with OfflineIMAP)
> 2. fast and responsive
> 3. easily searchable

Try mu4e.

-- Monte

[Henri-Paul Indiogine]

Greetings!

I finally managed to have Emacs Rmail work on my Xubuntu 12.04
desktop. I use getmail -> mbox -> rmail with POP from my Gmail
account.

However, I am not able to send email. I read the rmail documentation
on sending email but could not make it work. Can I still use Gmail?
What is the simplest way to go about?

Thanks,
Henri-Paul


--
Henri-Paul Indiogine

Curriculum & Instruction
Texas A&M University
TutorFind Learning Centre
http://www.tutorfind.ca

Email: hindi...@gmail.com
Skype: hindiogine

[Suvayu Ali]

Hi Monte,

This looks very nice. I will give it a shot. :)

> -- Monte
>

Cheers,

[Rémi Letot]

Suvayu Ali <fatkasuv...@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Rémi,

>
> On Thu, Aug 09, 2012 at 11:55:46PM +0200, Rémi Letot wrote:
>> Suvayu Ali <fatkasuv...@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> >
>> > I saw all the Gnus love on this list and elsewhere, and decided to try
>> > it when I was in search of an email client that does what I want.
>> >

>> > These were my needs:
>> >
>> > 1. ability to read mail directories (synced with OfflineIMAP)
>> > 2. fast and responsive
>> > 3. easily searchable
>>

>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm a bit late on this, but have you considered adding a local imap
>> server in the mix ?
>>
>> Lots of people seem to prefer using gnus nnimap + a local dovecot to
>> access maildir folders.
>>
>
> As a matter of fact, I did. I need to have access to my emails offline,
> hence my choice of using OfflineIMAP. OfflineIMAP docs say imap -> imap
> sync is still experimental.

you don't have to use imap -> imap sync, IIRC dovecot uses maildir as
storage, so you can sync the maildirs, and access you local maildir
through a local dovecot.

> Moreover I looked at setting up dovecot, the configuration seemed
> non-trivial.

Apparently the good thing is that you don't have to set it up at all:
just disable it (as a server process) and access it through a pipe in
gnus. Example:

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/JamesFerguson

> Also since for search I was looking at notmuch, maildirs
> seemed to fit the bill best. This also allows me to write simple
> scripts for things like notification.

Yes, with dovecot you keep all that, it just help to interface your
maildirs with gnus. Here is another (dated) example to integrate all
these:

http://roland.entierement.nu/blog/2010/09/08/gnus-dovecot-offlineimap-search-a-howto.html

HTH,
--
Rémi

[Uday Reddy]

chad writes:

> If you want to use emacs and keep your mail on the server, you

> probably want to look into Wanderlust. Gnus can do it also [...]

>
> If you don't mind moving to keep your email locally, your options
> expand quite a bit. In addition to Gnus, you can try rmail, mh-e, and
> VM.

I would like to correct the impression that VM is a local folder mail
client. Starting with version 8.1.0 (released in March 2010), VM has had
full support for IMAP. Quoting from the release notes for 8.1.0:

MAJOR NEW FEATURES:

* Support for reading and replying to messages in HTML.

* Full support for IMAP servers. (See "IMPROVEMENTS for
imap-folders".)

I should also add that VM is very similar to Rmail in its basic structure,
but extends Rmail with full support for MIME and POP/IMAP servers. It also
has a very powerful virtual folder facility. (VM was in fact the inventor
of the "virtual folder" concept). Virtual folders are extremely useful when
you have to deal with large quantities of email, with multiple mail folders
etc.

You can find the public releases of VM here:

http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/viewmail/

and the development versions here:

http://launchpad.net/vm

Cheers,
Uday

[James Freer]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 8:41 AM, Uday Reddy <usr.vm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> chad writes:
>
>> If you want to use emacs and keep your mail on the server, you

>> probably want to look into Wanderlust. Gnus can do it also [...]

>>
>> If you don't mind moving to keep your email locally, your options
>> expand quite a bit. In addition to Gnus, you can try rmail, mh-e, and
>> VM.
>

> I would like to correct the impression that VM is a local folder mail
> client. Starting with version 8.1.0 (released in March 2010), VM has had
> full support for IMAP. Quoting from the release notes for 8.1.0:
>
> MAJOR NEW FEATURES:
>
> * Support for reading and replying to messages in HTML.
>
> * Full support for IMAP servers. (See "IMPROVEMENTS for
> imap-folders".)
>
> I should also add that VM is very similar to Rmail in its basic structure,
> but extends Rmail with full support for MIME and POP/IMAP servers. It also
> has a very powerful virtual folder facility. (VM was in fact the inventor
> of the "virtual folder" concept). Virtual folders are extremely useful when
> you have to deal with large quantities of email, with multiple mail folders
> etc.
>
> You can find the public releases of VM here:
>
> http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/viewmail/
>
> and the development versions here:
>
> http://launchpad.net/vm
>
> Cheers,
> Uday

As VM isn't part of gnu-emacs why has Rmail not been developed. There
was a discussion thread a while back on how emacs could be improved.
Emacs is "complete working environment" but for email for IMAP and
virtual folders one has to turn to another app. Xemacs i believe has
VM installed with it. Why not use Xemacs? well i found it fairly poor
compared with gnu-emacs [well it doesn't seem to have been compiled
properly for use on ubuntu somehow.]

james

[Lowell Gilbert]

James Freer <jesseja...@gmail.com> writes:

>
> As VM isn't part of gnu-emacs why has Rmail not been developed. There
> was a discussion thread a while back on how emacs could be improved.
> Emacs is "complete working environment" but for email for IMAP and
> virtual folders one has to turn to another app. Xemacs i believe has
> VM installed with it. Why not use Xemacs? well i found it fairly poor
> compared with gnu-emacs [well it doesn't seem to have been compiled
> properly for use on ubuntu somehow.]

Rmail is nice and simple; adding major new features to it would amount
to writing another new mail reader, which would be silly. Gnu Emacs
already ships with several ways to handle IMAP, at least one of which
(Gnus) also does virtual folders in several ways. And while VM may not
be included with Gnu Emacs, it is available as a system package on many
OS distributions (including Ubuntu) the same way that Emacs is. So there
are plenty of options.

[James Freer]

Thing is i'd like to stay 'simple' but Rmail could at least be
developed to handletake IMAP.
Gnus is 'geek' application - "Lepers" like me struggle to get it setup.

james

[Richard Riley]

James Freer <jesseja...@gmail.com>
writes:

> As VM isn't part of gnu-emacs why has Rmail not been developed. There
> was a discussion thread a while back on how emacs could be improved.
> Emacs is "complete working environment" but for email for IMAP and
> virtual folders one has to turn to another app. Xemacs i believe has
> VM installed with it. Why not use Xemacs? well i found it fairly poor
> compared with gnu-emacs [well it doesn't seem to have been compiled
> properly for use on ubuntu somehow.]

gnus, which I have found vastly superior is just about every aspect
other than ease of uptake, is shipped with gnus 24 at least. Actively
developed, large user base, works fine with IMAP, has an offline agent,
queues etc I find it hard to recommend any other emacs mail client.

[Richard Riley]

James Freer <jesse...@gmail.com> writes:

> On 14 August 2012 19:25, Lowell Gilbert <lgus...@be-well.ilk.org> wrote:

> Thing is i'd like to stay 'simple' but Rmail could at least be
> developed to handletake IMAP.
> Gnus is 'geek' application - "Lepers" like me struggle to get it setup.
>
> james
>

It has a very active user community and most setup issues are quickly
solved. I particularly like recent additions such as better gpg
integration for authinfo files so passwords are not plaintext and the
addition of multiple smtp servers for domains (e.g when you have two
gmail accounts).


--
Sent using Emacs/Gnus from home ...

[Carson Chittom]

James Freer <jesse...@gmail.com> writes:

> Thing is i'd like to stay 'simple' but Rmail could at least be
> developed to handletake IMAP.
> Gnus is 'geek' application - "Lepers" like me struggle to get it setup.

And Emacs is simple? The mere fact that there's a mail client, at all,
of any sort, included with a text editor (much less more than one) to my
mind pretty much throws "simple" by the wayside. That's not a
criticism--I'm sending this from Gnus--but just an observation that if
simplicity is your goal, I'm not sure an MUA in Emacs is the way to go.

Also, I've never used VM, but looking at EmacsWiki's "QuickStart" page
for VM[1], it seems to me that putting

(setq vm-spool-files `((,vm-primary-inbox
"imap:HOST:PORT:MAILBOX:AUTH:USER:PASSWORD"
,vm-crash-box)))

in ~/.vm isn't any more or less complex than putting

(setq gnus-select-method
'(nnimap "mail"
(nnimap-address "HOST")
(nnimap-server-port PORT)
(nnimap-stream AUTH)))

in ~/.gnus.

So I'm not sure where you're coming from.

[1] http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ViewMailQuickStart

[Peter Davis]

I'm a bit surprised no one's mentioned Wanderlust. This is an excellent
Emacs-based mail/newsreader, and vastly simpler to configure than GNUS.

More info here: http://emacswiki.org/emacs/WanderLust

-pd


--
----
The Tech Curmudgeon
http://www.techcurmudgeon.com

[Richard Riley]

Peter Davis <p...@pfdstudio.com> writes:

> I'm a bit surprised no one's mentioned Wanderlust. This is an excellent
> Emacs-based mail/newsreader, and vastly simpler to configure than GNUS.
>
> More info here: http://emacswiki.org/emacs/WanderLust
>
> -pd

It has been mentioned, but Wanderlust has only a small % of the Gnus
functionality and support from what I can gather.

Since Gnus was vastly improved in IMAP operations last year I know many
people have happily migrated over.

Yeah, I'm biased though ;)