[Alpine-info] Trivia trick on big folders

[Carlos E. R. via Alpine-info]

On 2025-09-04 00:29, D. Hugh Redelmeier via Alpine-info wrote:

>> From: Carlos E. R. via Alpine-info <alpine-info at u.washington.edu>

> 

>> When displaying this account folder, which is big, if I try to sort by threads

>> (K-D), the operation takes too long and Alpine asks several times if I want to

>> kill it.

> 

> Thanks for the tip.  I appreciate learning from others.

> 

> I'm guessing that your Alpine configuration is using IMAP.


Yes. Also, this is a remote account, I also have a huge local account 
also on imap.


> 

> I don't seem to have this problem.  My Alpine is using /var/spool/mail and

> ~/mail/... on Linux.

> 

> This may be a rare configuration: I'm running a mail server on the same

> machine.  It's the way I've used MUAs for 50 years (starting with

> UNIX's /bin/mail). One could do this with fetchmail (or getmail?) to copy

> messages from IMAP to the local machine.


Yes, I keep my local archive using dovecot, but I read the email on my 
provider servers, using imap. I no longer use fetchmail. Instead, I move 
old mail either with Alpine to local folders, or using "imapsync".

I could use fetchmail, but that operation does not preserve the "read" 
flags.



-- 
Cheers / Saludos,

		Carlos E. R.
		(from 15.6 x86_64 at Telcontar)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: OpenPGP_signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 209 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mailman23.u.washington.edu/pipermail/alpine-info/attachments/20250904/72e5da8a/attachment.sig>