Mutt, Exchange, IMAP and Mail Filtering.

[jbsegal]

So, at work the mail server is a {shudder} exchange box. (It's fronted by a pair of linux boxes for stripping attachments, running Spam Assassin, and so on, but they deliver to the exchange box and that can't (won't) be changed.

Luckily, exchange supports IMAP/IMAPS so I (and the few other linux destop users) don't have to rely on VMWare and LookOut.

However, I want to read my mail in mutt. Mutt is good. I like mutt. IMAP is probably a good thing and I want to try sticking with it for a while - thus, I don't want to grab my mail with fetchmail and bring it locally to a given single machine.

But given the combination of Mutt, IMAP and Exchange, I have yet to figure out how to run the moral equivalent of procmail on my incoming mail stream.

So far, the best solution I've come up with is to keep a copy of Thunderbird (or Evolution, except that that's prone to freezing/crashing) running on my machine at work having it handle the mail filtering and then do my actual reading with mutt. While more or less functional, this is a bogus solution.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

Comments

[shayde.livejournal.com]

The outlook client lets you set up filtering on the server (server-side rules), which will apply no matter what client you read the mail from. Use Outlook to build and configure your rules in the exchange server - sorting things into folders as appropriate, then read it from the IMAP client.

The Exchange web client may let you do this as well, I dunno, for the version of Exchange I was using at Intuit, the webmail client blew chunks.

Last but not least is to use client-side rulesets, ala Thunderbird or Evolution as you say. I run Evolution religiously, and have had no freeze/crash problems. YMMV, natch.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

I run Evolution religiously, and have had no freeze/crash problems.

Indeed it has already, very much.

On a virgin install of FC4, evo froze on me (requiring force quits) 3?5? times in the 1st day.

A couple of times were on calendar operations, a couple were on mail sorting.

I'll try the web client... I don't plan on using it for more than this at the most.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

I'll try the web client... I don't plan on using it for more than this at the most.

Nope. No rule editing. Ah well.

VMWare and LookOut on Monday and then only when I need updates...

Thanks!

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

YMMV, natch.

In my previous comment, add this to the quoted section... :)

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

you could also try aliasing Mutt selection commands to macros, like:

macro index \Cb "T~Celbows\n;s=elbows\n"

to save everything cc'd to "elbows" to an "elbows" folder when you press Ctrl-B. As a bonus, the folder will be kept on the IMAP server if you've set your "folder" variable to imap://whatever/.

Disclaimer: I have not actually tried this. But it looks like it should work from reading the documentation and random web pages I found from Google. The really cool thing would be to have mutt do this automatically whenever you start it up, but I don't think you can do that. :-)

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

That's a fascinating idea.

I wonder how long a macro can be? :)

(IE: A single gianormous macro that does ALL my filtering. :)

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Another thing to look for if you go that route, is to see if mutt can execute an initial key stroke. I know that pine can, so I've set it to open up and display my message index.

[dsrtao]

mutt will happily execute a macro when a folder is opened; I believe this includes the default folder.