Problem importing labels

[Daniel Goldin]

I'm a non-programmer who uses emacs for academic papers via org-roam, and for email via mu4e. I have been trying the new version of mu 1.12.13 but have not succeeded in importing labels from one machine to another. After running mbsync -a and indexing on the second machine, I then attempt to import labels exported from the other machine (mu import labels exported-file), I get this error:

failed to find by path: no matching messages for path:/home/my-name/Maildir/archive/cur/1760985676.4031494bb7cf783f15.fedora-3.attlocal.net,U=16724:2,RS; try with message-id

Any help gratefully appreciated.

Daniel

--
Daniel Goldin
Editor, Psychoanalytic Inquiry
https://www.psychoanalyticinquiry.com

626-817-2462

[Dirk-Jan C. Binnema]

On Wednesday Oct 22 2025, Daniel Goldin wrote:

> I'm a non-programmer who uses emacs for academic papers via org-roam,
> and for email via mu4e. I have been trying the new version of mu 1.12.13
> but have not succeeded in importing labels from one machine to another.
> After running mbsync -a and indexing on the second machine, I then
> attempt to import labels exported from the other machine (mu import
> labels exported-file), I get this error:
>
> failed to find by path: no matching messages for path:/home/my-name/Maildir/archive/cur/1760985676.4031494bb7cf783f15.fedora-3.attlocal.net,U=16724:2,RS; try with message-id
>
> Any help gratefully appreciated.

Thanks for trying it out!

Trying to restore on a *different* machine is not a use-case I've ever
tested or even considered. It could still work a bit.

So after re-indexing on machine B you get such an error for each
message? Or for some?

The "normal path" of the import/export mechanism depends on the file
system path of the message files. Are those identical between those
machines? I suspect mbsync will give you _different_ names. So that
explains the warning you see.

But, there's still the "fallback path", which tries to use the
message-id. So that might still work; did you get any other errors? You
can also try with --verbose and see if tells you more.

Kind regards,
Dirk.

--
Dirk-Jan C. Binnema Helsinki, Finland
e:dj...@djcbsoftware.nl w:www.djcbsoftware.nl
gpg: 6987 9CED 1745 9375 0F14 DA98 11DD FEA9 DCC4 A036

[Daniel Goldin]

When I tried with verbose -- it showed that the labels were applied. I guess mu reverted to using message-id?

 In any event, it seemed to work after all, so I apologize for the noise. Mu4e works great for me on multiple machines, by the way, I just use rclone to make sure all my emacs configs are synchronized as well. 

Warmly,

Daniel

--

Daniel Goldin

Editor, Psychoanalytic Inquiry

626-817-2462

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mu-discuss" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mu-discuss+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mu-discuss/871pmu68w5.fsf%40djcbsoftware.nl.

[Dirk-Jan C. Binnema]

On Wednesday Oct 22 2025, Daniel Goldin wrote:

> When I tried with verbose -- it showed that the labels were applied. I
> guess mu reverted to using message-id?
>
> In any event, it seemed to work after all, so I apologize for the noise.
> Mu4e works great for me on multiple machines, by the way, I just use rclone
> to make sure all my emacs configs are synchronized as well.

Ah, I suppose the warnings were a bit misleading then; and I'm happy
that "plan B" still worked in your case.

I'll try to make the output a bit clear.