2002-03-26 03:53:09 +00:00
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archivemail - archive and compress old mail in your mailbox
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'archivemail' is a tool written in Python for organising and storing old
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email choking any of your mailboxes. It can move messages older than a
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2002-03-31 03:46:59 +00:00
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certain number of days to a separate 'archive' mbox-format mailbox which
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can be compressed with bzip2, gzip or compress.
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2002-03-26 03:53:09 +00:00
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For example, have you been subscribing to the 'linux-kernel' mailing list
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for the last 6 years and ended up with an 160-meg mailbox that 'mutt' is
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taking a long time to load? 'archivemail' can move all messages that are
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older than 6 months to a separate compressed mailbox, and leave you with
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just the most recent messages.
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'archivemail' can save a lot of disk space and will significantly reduce
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overhead on your mail reader. The number of days before mail is considered
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2002-03-31 05:01:04 +00:00
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'old' is up to you, but the default is 180 days. To see the options
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archivemail supports, try running 'archivemail --help'.
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2002-03-26 03:53:09 +00:00
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2002-04-04 11:19:29 +00:00
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'archivemail' currently works on mbox, maildir and MH format mailboxes
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2002-03-31 03:46:59 +00:00
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and requires python v2.0 or greater. It also supports deleting old mail
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2002-03-31 05:01:04 +00:00
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instead of archiving it with the '--delete' option.
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The best way to run archivemail is from cron. Giving the '-q' option to
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archivemail will make it quiet, only printing messages if something went
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wrong.
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2002-04-04 11:19:29 +00:00
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Another good option to remember is the '--dry-run' or '-n' option, which will
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just show you how many messages it would have archived without actually
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writing to the disk.
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2002-03-31 05:01:04 +00:00
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archivemail is not exactly blazingly quick at the moment, but if you run it
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from cron you won't mind. Archiving from maildir mailboxes instead of 'mbox'
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is a lot quicker too, since we don't have to do to as much effort to delete
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mail from the original mailbox.
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Here is an example script I use for running archivemail from cron:
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__________________________________________________________________________
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#!/bin/sh
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#set -x
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set -e
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ARCMAIL="archivemail --output-dir=$HOME/Mail/Archive/ "
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$ARCMAIL --days 30 --delete $HOME/Mail/duplicates
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$ARCMAIL --days 90 $HOME/Mail/bugtraq \
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$HOME/Mail/debian-devel \
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$HOME/Mail/debian-mentors \
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$HOME/Mail/debian-user \
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$HOME/Mail/jobs \
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$HOME/Mail/linux-kernel \
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$HOME/Mail/python-list \
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$HOME/Mail/spam \
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$HOME/Mail/spam-l \
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$ARCMAIL $HOME/Mail/cm-melb \
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$HOME/Mail/exsouthrock \
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$HOME/Mail/received \
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$HOME/Mail/sent \
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$HOME/Mail/vim
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__________________________________________________________________________
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The archivemail website is at: http://archivemail.sourceforge.net/
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-- Paul Rodger <paul@paulrodger.com>
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