What happens when contents of a mail message change?

[Cameron Simpson]

On 19May2012 21:10, Stephen Eglen <S.J.Eglen at damtp.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
| Thanks for offlineimap; I'm using it with mu4e, a new email client for
| emacs (http://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e.html).
| 
| I'd like to investigate whether I can reliably delete attachments from
| email, based on e.g. python scripts like
| http://code.activestate.com/recipes/302086/
| 
| But I'm just wondering -- can offlineimap detect and sync cases when a
| Maildir file has changed its content (e.g. after deleting an
| attachment, or by adding a X-Tag: header).  Is it better to keep the
| original filename, or create a new file with the edited message and
| delete the original file?

Even if offlineimap got to check on things like message size etc, I
would not rely on the IMAP service noticing and reporting the hange; it
may keep "seen" message metadata in a db for fast lookup.

Therefore I would create a new Maildir file and delete the old.
Besides, that's safer - you get to defer the deletion until after the
successful creation.

BTW, that is also what the mutt mailreader does if you edit a message.

Cheers,
-- 
Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au> DoD#743
http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/

If you 'aint falling off, you ar'nt going hard enough.  - Fred Gassit