79 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
79 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
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archivemail - archive and compress old mail in your mailbox
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OVERVIEW:
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archivemail is a tool written in python(1) for archiving and compressing old
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email in mailboxes.
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It can move messages older than the specified number of days to a separate
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'archive' mbox-format mailbox that is compressed with 'gzip'.
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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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'old' is up to you, but the default is 180 days. You can also archive messages
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by an absolute date or only archive unread messages.
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REQUIREMENTS:
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archivemail requires python version 2.0 or later, with the optional 'zlib'
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module, although the zlib module comes with most python installations. If you
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are compiling your own version of python < version 2.2, make sure you
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uncomment the 'zlib' moduile in Modules/Setup in the python source directory.
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You can check to see if your version of python has the 'zlib' module by
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trying this:
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flare:~$ python
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Python 2.1 (#1, Apr 26 2002, 11:22:45)
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[GCC 2.95.2 20000220 (Debian GNU/Linux)] on linux2
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Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
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>>> import zlib
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>>>
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If you get an ImportError, then the zlib python module has not been installed.
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Try upgrading your python distribution.
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Python is available from http://www.python.org/
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If you want to run the bundled test script, you will need python version 2.1
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or later, because we use the PyUnit 'unittest' module. Sorry.
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INSTALLATION:
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If you want to test archivemail:
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cp archivemail archivemail.py
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python test_archivemail.py
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(NOTE: This could take over 90 seconds on slower systems)
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To install archivemail, run:
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python setup.py install
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USE:
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For more detailed information and examples, look at the archivemail man page.
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The best way to run archivemail is from cron, giving the '-q' option to
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archivemail to make it quiet, only printing messages if something went wrong.
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Check out the 'examples' directory for an example shell script to be run from
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cron.
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The archivemail website is at: http://archivemail.sourceforge.net/
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If you have any feedback or bug reports about archivemail, you are very
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welcome to email me.
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-- Paul Rodger <paul at paulrodger dot com>
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