RE: How to use Procmail to remove messages from server after x numberof days

You can use email clients like Thunderbird which can be configured to
PURGE messages older than X number of days.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bart
Schaefer
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 8:18 AM
To: Procmail
Subject: Re: How to use Procmail to remove messages from server after x
numberof days

On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 8:04 AM, Tim Rice <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I'm not sure if this is even possible, but I would like to 
> automatically remove all mail for all users after 10 days using
Procmail.

Generally speaking, procmail is the wrong tool for this job.  Procmail
is designed to work on a single message provided as an input stream, and
deliver it to a mailbox; it's not a tool for manipulating messages that
are already contained in mailboxes.

Yes, you can kluge something together by e.g. using the formail utility
to break up the mailbox and send the messages through procmail one by
one, but that won't accomplish updating the mailbox in place -- you'll
have to copy the mailbox, preserving only the messages that have not yet
expired, and then swap the copy for the original, all while locking out
new deliveries so as not to lose anything in the swap.

You'll be better off looking for a tool that actually is able to
manipulate mailboxes rather than individual messages.
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