redownloaded many gigs of mail

[Nicolas Sebrecht]

On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 05:39:53PM +0200, Sandra Snan wrote:
> Nicolas Sebrecht <nicolas.s-dev at laposte.net> writes:

> > There's no need to understand the technical details. Offlineimap just
> > mirrors the remote emails locally in a maildir structure. Syncing
> > updates both sides. That's all.  Bear in mind that it's a 2-way sync, so
> > changes done locally in the maildir structure are propagated back to the
> > server.
> 
> So if I do move emails out of the maildir with normal file system tools
> like "mv", that is enough for it to do the right thing?

That's enough to "remove" the email from the synced maildir and it's
going to be deleted on the remote on next sync.

>                                                         Or do I need
> some sorta special "mail client" that can handle the maildirs properly?

No. However, this might help to read the emails and select/clean them.

Tip: a maildir is just a directory having the "cur", "tmp" and "new"
sub-directories. You could create a maildir called "archive-off" and
filter it from the sync process ('folderfilter' configuration option).
Emails _moved_ (with mv or an email reader) into this maildir would
stand in the local side only and deleted form the INBOX.

> Thank you again for all your help

You're welcome.

-- 
Nicolas Sebrecht