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keeping up with email became a snap for me once I discovered mutt and procmail. This post definitely falls under "reinventing the wheel", but I can't say that's

keeping up with email became a snap for me once I discovered mutt and procmail. This post definitely falls under "reinventing the wheel", but I can't say that's a bad thing. Unfortunately, most people's workflow is so different, that having one email workflow/interface just won't cut it, and sometimes it takes a custom solution.

pmlnr 11y ago
Why procmail, why not Sieve on the server side?
- pjc50 11y ago
  Perhaps they went over to mutt+procmail before Sieve was written? Perhaps they don't use Cyrus IMAP, or lack the relevant permissions on their host? Both of those apply to me; I have a mutt+procmail account and a Gmail account for different purposes.
  - SwellJoe 11y ago
    Dovecot also supports Sieve. Nonetheless, I still use procmail, even though I could turn on Sieve on my mail servers. Habits die hard, and the tools I use to manage my procmail rules (Virtualmin and Usermin) don't yet support Sieve directly (though its on the roadmap for the Usermin update coming in a few months).
- rakoo 11y ago
  Which mail providers provide Sieve support ? I see Fastmail does, but Gmail doesn't.
  - pdonis 11y ago
    > Which mail providers provide Sieve support ? Nobody really does, which I find extremely frustrating since sieve is supposed to be the Internet standard for mail filtering. Fastmail sort of does, in that they use sieve rules; but last time I looked, they didn't have a managesieve interface, which means I can't just upload the sieve rules I have spent a lot of time creating on my home email server. I have to create them from scratch using Fastmail's rather clunky (IMO) interface. As far as I can tell, no other email provider uses sieve at all.
    - dasyatidprime 11y ago
      They do allow you to provide Sieve scripts as text, but you do have to use the Web interface to upload them, under Advanced → Rules, so changes aren't readily automatable AFAIK. Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly where the enable button is for people who aren't using it already, since I'm already using it.
      - pdonis 11y ago
        > They do allow you to provide Sieve scripts as text, but you do have to use the Web interface to upload them, under Advanced → Rules, so changes aren't readily automatable AFAIK. Not only that, but I can't upload them using my email client, which has managesieve support already built in.
    - brongondwana 11y ago
      We don't provide MANAGESIEVE because we don't trust the Cyrus implementation code to be safe to provide over the internet! No in-principle objection to doing it otherwise. My ideal would be to manage sieve scripts via an IMAP annotation, but maybe that ship is well and truly sailed.
      - pdonis 11y ago
        > We don't provide MANAGESIEVE because we don't trust the Cyrus implementation code to be safe to provide over the internet! I'm not sure I understand. MANAGESIEVE means you send and receive text over a socket connection, which can be secured with TLS. If the text you get back is not valid per the managesieve protocol, you simply ignore it and send back an error; you don't need to trust any code on the client side and you don't need to provide any code over the internet. What is the implementation code issue?
  - detaro 11y ago
    mailbox.org does.
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  It's what I've always used. I've never really had a need to look for another tool. Sieve does look interesting though. And I basically access all my mail from the server itself, so my procmail rules run locally anyway.
uxcn 11y ago
I'd have a hard time switching to an email client other than mutt. I'm not sure what I would do without an actual grammar to deal with email.
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  What do you mean by > grammar to deal with email. ?
  - uxcn 11y ago
    The macro/command syntax for mutt. For example, tagging all the email from someone and saving it to a folder (Tsomeone, ;s=folder). Filter rules as well (e.g. sieve).
    - CaptSpify 11y ago
      Oh, gotcha. Yeah. My favorite part is being able to customize/script those commands in the config.
- stevekemp 11y ago
  I used to love mutt, but I found that the "scripting" support wasn't there. So using mutt as my model I came up with https://github.com/lumail/lumail2/ https://github.com/lumail/lumail2/ A console client with _real_ scripting, in Lua. Sadly it is Maildir-only, because thats how I always used mutt, but it seems to make some people happy.
stevekemp 11y ago
I used to love mutt, but I found that the "scripting" support wasn't there. So using mutt as my model I came up with https://github.com/lumail/lumail2/ https://github.com/lumail/lumail2/ A console client with _real_ scripting, in Lua. Sadly it is Maildir-only, because thats how I always used mutt, but it seems to make some people happy.

pmlnr 11y ago

Why procmail, why not Sieve on the server side?

pjc50 11y ago
Perhaps they went over to mutt+procmail before Sieve was written? Perhaps they don't use Cyrus IMAP, or lack the relevant permissions on their host? Both of those apply to me; I have a mutt+procmail account and a Gmail account for different purposes.
- SwellJoe 11y ago
  Dovecot also supports Sieve. Nonetheless, I still use procmail, even though I could turn on Sieve on my mail servers. Habits die hard, and the tools I use to manage my procmail rules (Virtualmin and Usermin) don't yet support Sieve directly (though its on the roadmap for the Usermin update coming in a few months).
rakoo 11y ago
Which mail providers provide Sieve support ? I see Fastmail does, but Gmail doesn't.
- pdonis 11y ago
  > Which mail providers provide Sieve support ? Nobody really does, which I find extremely frustrating since sieve is supposed to be the Internet standard for mail filtering. Fastmail sort of does, in that they use sieve rules; but last time I looked, they didn't have a managesieve interface, which means I can't just upload the sieve rules I have spent a lot of time creating on my home email server. I have to create them from scratch using Fastmail's rather clunky (IMO) interface. As far as I can tell, no other email provider uses sieve at all.
  - dasyatidprime 11y ago
    They do allow you to provide Sieve scripts as text, but you do have to use the Web interface to upload them, under Advanced → Rules, so changes aren't readily automatable AFAIK. Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly where the enable button is for people who aren't using it already, since I'm already using it.
    - pdonis 11y ago
      > They do allow you to provide Sieve scripts as text, but you do have to use the Web interface to upload them, under Advanced → Rules, so changes aren't readily automatable AFAIK. Not only that, but I can't upload them using my email client, which has managesieve support already built in.
  - brongondwana 11y ago
    We don't provide MANAGESIEVE because we don't trust the Cyrus implementation code to be safe to provide over the internet! No in-principle objection to doing it otherwise. My ideal would be to manage sieve scripts via an IMAP annotation, but maybe that ship is well and truly sailed.
    - pdonis 11y ago
      > We don't provide MANAGESIEVE because we don't trust the Cyrus implementation code to be safe to provide over the internet! I'm not sure I understand. MANAGESIEVE means you send and receive text over a socket connection, which can be secured with TLS. If the text you get back is not valid per the managesieve protocol, you simply ignore it and send back an error; you don't need to trust any code on the client side and you don't need to provide any code over the internet. What is the implementation code issue?
- detaro 11y ago
  mailbox.org does.
CaptSpify 11y ago
It's what I've always used. I've never really had a need to look for another tool. Sieve does look interesting though. And I basically access all my mail from the server itself, so my procmail rules run locally anyway.

uxcn 11y ago

I'd have a hard time switching to an email client other than mutt. I'm not sure what I would do without an actual grammar to deal with email.

CaptSpify 11y ago
What do you mean by > grammar to deal with email. ?
- uxcn 11y ago
  The macro/command syntax for mutt. For example, tagging all the email from someone and saving it to a folder (Tsomeone, ;s=folder). Filter rules as well (e.g. sieve).
  - CaptSpify 11y ago
    Oh, gotcha. Yeah. My favorite part is being able to customize/script those commands in the config.
stevekemp 11y ago
I used to love mutt, but I found that the "scripting" support wasn't there. So using mutt as my model I came up with https://github.com/lumail/lumail2/ https://github.com/lumail/lumail2/ A console client with _real_ scripting, in Lua. Sadly it is Maildir-only, because thats how I always used mutt, but it seems to make some people happy.

stevekemp 11y ago

I used to love mutt, but I found that the "scripting" support wasn't there. So using mutt as my model I came up with https://github.com/lumail/lumail2/ https://github.com/lumail/lumail2/ A console client with _real_ scripting, in Lua. Sadly it is Maildir-only, because thats how I always used mutt, but it seems to make some people happy.