Re: local mailboxes in thunderbird

Mario Frasca wrote:
> Hi, thanks for the reply...
> 
> On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 08:54:35 +0100, J.O. Aho wrote:
>> Think you need to set TB to not delete mail from the mail box, so it
>> won't move the mail (may still make copies)
> 
> mmm... mumble mumble...  all right: since I only use TB when I have to
> help some windows-tied friend, to shadow his/her behaviour, or when I
> receive some html mail with offline attachments I want to see, I could
> accept some duplicated archiving...  after all, I can delete the whole
> ~/.mozilla-thunderbird structure each time...
> 
>> as TB uses it's own
>> (NetScape) way to store the mail, it will not allow you to share the
>> mail with other tools, but you can transfer it to another "netscape"
>> product that handles mail like mozilla.
> 
> as far as I understand, if I don't use IMAP but POP, TB actually saves
> mailboxes in a unix-compatible way (I've occasionally been using its
> conversion from outlook), the only additions I can see are the .msf files.
> I don't think it must be that difficult to add a method to use mailboxes
> in ~/mail and keep somewhere in ~/.mozilla-thunderbird all internal (.msf)
> files.
> 
>>> (((actually I would also like squirrelmail to be able to do the same,
>>> but that would be a bit more complex, as that does not run as
>>> $USER...)))
>> Think you need to do a bit hacking in the php code to make it to use
>> ~/mail.
> 
> yes, I know, I know, I'm just in a terrible lack of time...  and I don't
> like php...  I think I might first have a look at thunderbird's code...
> 

In fact, the TB's special account "Local folders" does almost what we want:
e.g. if your mutt / balsa mailboxes are in $HOME/Mail, make TB use this
directory for the account "Local folders". Then link 
/var/spool/mail/$USER to $HOME/Mail/Inbox. The only problem with this
solution is that TB doesn't see if new mail arrives. I think if TB would 
   check the mailboxes in such a "Local folders" account periodically it 
could perfectly be used to share mailboxes with mutt / balsa etc.

btw., Mario: what are the differences (advantages) of balsa compared to 
mutt (I use only mutt)?

-- 
Johannes