On Tue, Nov 05, 2019 at 05:30:10AM +0000, Mark Rousell wrote:
Before I go on, I should say that this is now an area with which I am not overly familiar in detail. I know Thunderbird very well but I am not familiar in detail with getmail, Dovecot or maildir structures.
No problem; I know getmail and maildir, but my last usage of Thunderbird was ten years ago.
I should also say that I only suggested setting up a local IMAP server as a way to let Thunderbird access your email. My smiley was because this might be overkill solely in order to see emails with HTML content! But it's not actually that unreasonable, come to think of it.
For some reason which I do not immediately recall, I chose POP3 over IMAP the last time I had the option. As to overkill, I lived for five years or more with the webmail client of my ISP; compared to that, anything else is a pleasure.
I just had a quick look at this HOWTO and it seems to focus on using fetchmail to store mail in mbox format with Dovecot as the IMAP server. From your comments, you're using getmail and maildir so you could not follow the HOWTO exactly but you can still apply the same principles to place email in a place where Dovecot can find it. I have not done it myself but I understand that you should be able to configure Dovecot to look at your getmail's maildir structure.
I have heard that getmail is more reliable than fetchmail, and I know from personal experience that getmail is rock solid. I may hold the world record for the number of messages downloaded in a nonstop marathon lasting several days; this was a few years back.
I'm going to refer to Dovecot as your local IMAP server below on the assumption that you choose Dovecot to do the IMAP job, but other IMAP servers are available.
Understood.
As I understand it, at the moment you are using getmail to collect mail from your ISP (presumably using IMAP or POP3)
POP3
and store it locally in a maildir structure. Mutt reads from the maildir structure.
Correct.
If you were to install Dovecot as an IMAP server alongside of this then (as I understand it, as I've not done it myself) Dovecot could also read from the same maildir structure.
Mail clients like Thunderbird could then access your local Dovecot IMAP server, which in turn would show them the contents of your maildir structure.
I might could live with that arrangement, but only if I do not lose messages because Dovecot decides they have been read and have aged too long to keep.
So the Dovecot IMAP server (and any mail clients like Thunderbird that connect to it) could see all your email (whatever is in your maildir structure) but email would not be routed through the IMAP server, as such. It's just that the IMAP server could access it as needed.
I still am bothered by the possibility of accidentally telling Thunderbird or another client to delete a message. It would be nice if Dovecot could be run in a read-only mode. Whichever way I go, I thank you for recommending the IMAP approach.
