Marrying Gmail and Mutt

teumima writes "I found this article very nice and simple on how to configure mutt for g-mail." Indeed; nice piece. I've been experimenting with using Gmail as my default mail drop, but don't really want to be dependent on being online or just POP; I just wish they would let me pay for IMAP service. Linux.com is also owned by OSTG.

Braindead article

[brunes69]

I was expecting/hoping to find an article on how to download my GMail while preserving my labels (treating them as folders).

What I got was a tutorial on how to use POP in Mutt.

What does this article even have to do with GMail, other than it happened to be the person's POP server?

GMail's POP access is basically useless IMO. Until they get IMAP I will continue with my current scheme, whereby I send all email to GMail, and forward it to my own IMAP server as well. Then I can read my email with an IMAP client when at home and work, and with GMail when on the road.

Re:

[xiong.chiamiov]

Same here. I know that I _can_ use POP in Gmail, but that defeats the whole point of Gmail. Conversations? 2 gigs storage? Labels, Google-searching my email, etc.?

Re:

[kernelpanicked]

and on my hard drive just to counter. procmail? 120+ GB of storage? mboxgrep searching with full regex?

Re:

[xiong.chiamiov]

See, but that storage you have to pay for (granted, not much, but). I don't need more clutter on my hd. And, ... crap I forgot what I was going to say. That's what happens when you're IMing and /.ing at the same time lol.

No IMAP == no ads. POP for backups.

[jetxee]

I think Gmail will not offer IMAP in the near future (gratis). This will make the web interface, we all like so much, less attractive. Who will read ads after that?

Though offering at least POP access is very important. This is the way I may make offline backup of my mail archive. And prefer using web interface :)

Should read: IMAP == no ads

[jetxee]

Sorry for wrong subject: it should be read as "IMAP == no ads". I forgot to proof-read the title.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Gmail is marrying Mutt ? Mutt Lange ? He's splitting with Shania Twain ?
I don't believe it.

But, just in case ... Shania, 555-1234. Call me.

Re:

[kernelpanicked]

While I agree that an article on configuring fetchmail and mutt is not exactly ground breaking, the point is to get your mail out of that horrid gmail interface and into a real mail client.

Re:

[pembo13]

Why have a Gmail account at all if you don't like the UI ?

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[kernelpanicked]

Good point. Myself, I have plenty of domains and servers to handle my email, so I use Gmail to catch all the crap messages I may or may not want. Some people don't have this luxury and just need an email account with pop access.

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[ChunderDownunder]

Being able to use a 'fat' client for email is the selling point for me. (Only ever had access to IMAP once, so POP3 suffices).

Many providers offer free web mail (advertising revenue).Some offer free POP3. I've signed up for these twice and been stung. All of a sudden I can receive mail but not send. Turns out, via an obscure note on their website that SMTP is now a premium service! This is a problem because:

1. If you're outside your home ISP you may not be able to piggyback off a known SMTP server (think

Re:

[crush]

Because you want a nice, reliable web-interface for when you're somewhere without one of your own machines, but you prefer the efficiency of using Mutt when you're at the office or at home.

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[spiritraveller]

While I agree that an article on configuring fetchmail and mutt is not exactly ground breaking

Yeah, especially since the article is over a year old.

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[k33l0r]

I don't understand why people complain about the gmail UI. I feel that hotmail (old and the new 'live' one) are far, far worse. The same goes for yahoo and aol (only signed up for that to get an xdrive account)... I love the way gmail is uncluttered, hotmail has flashing, screaming ads all over the place.

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[NateTech]

Agreed. Another "let's say these two things are related" article with key buzzwords to get people to think there's really news here. POP in mutt is news? Please. Really.

POP.

[Aladrin]

It's just POP. It's nothing special. If you've ever used MUTT for POP3, then you've done this.

Married?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

So. GMail married mutt! Doesn't that take the cake? In High School, they didn't even like each other!

Wasn't Stallman married to a DEC PDP System at one point?

Share the software, and you'll be free...

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[drinkypoo]

Wasn't Stallman married to a DEC PDP System at one point?

Yes, but one day he hooked a gas chromatograph up to it, and it could suddenly smell him...

GMail IMAP is needed

[j0ebaker]

There are concerns about some IMAP clients being implemented innefficiently.

Still, I really thing Google should support the protocol. Maybe they could detect the patterns of the inneficient clients and simply disconnect them untill the client's protocol support is cleaned up.

For the most part, I LOVE Mozilla Thunderbird's IMAP support. I have 45 email users using Thunderbird with IMAP.

-Joe Baker
IT Administrator
NEL Frequency Controls, Inc.

Re:

[On Lawn]

Check out iGmail [butterfat.net].

I tried it out yesterday, in fact. It works as advertised, which means many limitations. But it does translate Gmail to IMAP efficiently and effectively.

The two limitations are based on Gmail. You can't copy from another email address to Gmail, so it isn't an import tool. I don't know there is any way to simply import mail to Gmail (all I've seen is one that forwards all the mail in your mailbox). The other limitation is based in the different paradigms of folders and labels. iGmail handles

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[Anonymous Bullard]

The disclaimer at the bottom of the iGmail site might constitute a third "limitation"..

Not a great article

[crush]

I suppose part of the blame for my reaction to this article is the title that Slashdot editors gave it "Marrying Gmail and Mutt" which implies complete integration, whereas the original article title is "Fetching email with Mutt" (a much more modest endeavour that is covered fairly well). However the article fails on that foot too by suggesting that there's a need to use an external fetchmail, whereas Mutt can be compiled to have POP support built in and some simple editing of .muttrc will then suffice.

Google, are you listening?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I'm going a little OT, but I'm a mutt fan myself, and although I like GMail, I wouldn't consider it for my corporation unless/until it provides a little more than it currently does.

I would readily outsource my corporate email to Google under the following conditions:

* Provide IMAP support. Sending labels as X-Label headers would be icing on the cake.
* Give me a privacy policy. Requirements:
- If I delete an email, it is deleted. Period.
- Backup/restore run by my corpora

New name needed

[A_Non_Moose]

(gah, yeah, I'm gonna say it)

I for one welcome our new Gm'muttail (pronounced Gum-mutt tail) overlords.