inbox / mbox parsing

Hi,

I always used mutt in combination with a local mail folder until my system
administrators decided that they will not longer support local mail folders
and everybody has to change to imap. However, two annoying things remain
after my change to the imap server:

1. Using the local mail folder, I saw in my inbox the content of the local
mail folder on the mail server and when I exit mutt, it asks whether it
should store this inbox contents in the mbox in my home folder or not. This
works very convenient for me. The inbox folder is small (it means that mutt
can parse the content quickly) and every now and then I transfer the content
to the mbox which is huge (it takes long to parse).
After my change to the imap server, mutt parses the inbox on the imap server
AND the mbox in my home directory when it starts, which takes a long time.
When exiting, it moves all the mail from the inbox on the imap server
automatically to the mbox in my home directory.
Why does the behaviour change from the local mail folder usage and can I do
something to:
- leave the mail on the inbox on the imap mail server until I decide to move
it
- prevent mutt from parsing my mbox in my homedirectory

2. I have to supply a password every time. I know that you can set a
password for imap in the .muttrc file in plain text, but this is not
acceptable. I think this is a problem that can not be solved, but is it
possible to 'pass' the password to the imap server (similar to hopping with
ssh from one server to the other without having passwords that are stored in
plain text).

Thanks,

Lodewijk

On Tue, 25 May 2004 21:42:34 +0200, Lodewijk Smit wrote:
> Why does the behaviour change from the local mail folder usage

Because you haven't told Mutt that your inbox has moved.

> can I do something to:
> - leave the mail on the inbox on the imap mail server until I decide
> to move it

<http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual/manual-6.html#mbox>

> - prevent mutt from parsing my mbox in my homedirectory

<http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual/manual-6.html#folder>
<http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual/manual-6.html#spoolfile>

> 2. I have to supply a password every time.

Sounds like good security to me. (Mutt will retain an IMAP connection
until it's requested to close it, so I presume "every time" means "every
time I start Mutt".)

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Ben Finney <http://bignose.squidly.org/>