On 16/01/2019 19.42, James Knott wrote:
On 01/16/2019 01:22 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
IMAP does that automagically. There is no longer imap, you told me to download the email to my client app... you are saying to:
There is an option in my email client to download the messages to the computer. The alternative is to only download the headers and then read the messages off the server. I have it configured to download the messages. However, this does not remove them from the server. It only keeps a copy on the computer, so that the messages are still readable when disconnected. I have 2 computers, a tablet and smartphone, all configured to run IMAP. It works well and the messages are all synced on all devices and email clients. IMAP just works!
I know all that very well. I have done that. I simply use imap while at home. When I'm not, you keep forgetting that I have limited connectivity and limited bandwidth. And metered. Telling the mail clients to keep a local copy for offline use, works badly on Thunderbird. We are talking of more than 15 Gigabytes of email to sync. Th. takes hours to do that. It hangs. And randomly skips some mails. So, not good. And Alpine never caches imap to disk, so I have to copy them some other way. An imap server at the laptop acts like a local cache that can be read from *any* client, alpine, thunderbird, mutt, seamonkey, whatever. With just a single store, with no internet usage.
So, store the hundreds of gigabytes from the dovecot server into thunderbird, waiting some hours... and several crashes of Thunderbird.
If you're talking storage, what's the difference between using Dovecot or Thunderbird? Also, Thunderbird will sync whenever it can reach the server. This means you'll only have download "gigabytes" the first time you connect the client to the server. After that, it's just updates as new messages are received and old ones deleted.
Gigabytes every time, I have tried it. Th. is very bad at this. Dovecot is very efficient and reliable and fast.
Or, store local mail in thunderbird, not a local dovecot. Then how to sync thunderbird local store, which is no longer on imap, to another thunderbird on another computer, and keep them in sync over the years, downloading email on any of the two computers?
I don't know why you have this obsession with running Dovecot.
Because it works! I'm already syncing dovecot servers! I'm just wondering about better tools to sync dovecot servers or accounts. I have tried everything you people are saying, I'm no novice.
When Thunderbird is configured for IMAP, messages will be left on the server, until you delete them. Then the deleted messages will be deleted on all devices. This is just the way IMAP works. It keeps everything in sync. I'm getting the impression you don't really understand how IMAP works. I have a couple of friends who insist on running POP. They have similar problems with syncing different devices.
BTW, I used to run my own IMAP server because my ISP didn't support IMAP at that time. Since they started supporting it, I stopped running my own server, as there is no longer any need to.
I prefer to keep my local copy. Besides, there is a limit of a 100 MB at my ISP mail server. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.0 x86_64 at Telcontar)