KMail -- fetch only what you want

[eager2no]

This is a trifle, but has made me extremely happy:
- Open Kmail
- Click Settings -- Configure KMail...
- In the left sidebar, click Accounts, select one, and click Modify...
- On the Advanced tab, click Filter Messages If They Are Greater Than, and set the size to 1 byte
Now whenever you fetch messages, a table will appear, listing all messages waiting on the server, with three radio buttons in front of each: fetch now, fetch later, delete.
Click the leftmost radio button for the messages you want fetched, and the rightmost one for stuff you want to kill on the server. Simple, extremely useful (to me), and I don't know of any other mail clients that do this (apart from The Bat!, my all-time favorite, but it is Windows-only).

[tschommer]

Wow, if I'd only known before. That was one of the reasons I switched to IMAP.

But I'll definitely keep that one in mind - thanks!

[kjpetrie]

And it gets even better if you set up the pop filters with regular expression matches. You can make it all happen automatically on any header at all. I never see the dialogue but most spam never gets beyond the server just the same.

Incidentally, I have only ever had spam claiming to come from the Bat! so anything with that header gets deleted from the server unread.

[Archie]

Great, tschnomer. Another happy camper using KMail like myself. I use IMAP on my laptop and I went to the extent of sorting everything emails on a desktop with filters. I also have Spamassasin so there's fewer spam getting in. I've got family, friends, school, PCLinuxOS, etc emails go to their respective subfolders, and the rest are either on the Inbox or on Trash.

[eager2no]

kjpetrie,
Just a bit of info on spam and The Bat!:

Code:

http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/spammer.html

[kjpetrie]

Thanks eager2no. I have refined my filter.

I have now put it back the way it was before. I just got so much spam that, as far as I'm concerned, the onus is on users and ultimately the authors of the Bat! to solve the problem. All wars have collateral damage, and the war against spam is no different. The people who are really hurting the Bat! are the spammers who impersonate it.

[kalwisti]

eager2no,

Thanks for that great tip! It's working nicely for me. I hadn't used KMail before but I decided to try it -- based on positive comments from this forum's readers -- when I made the switch to KDE 4. 

[menotu]

eager2no - would you mind if I re-posted this tip in a newsgroup I visit?

menotu

[eager2no]

menotu,
I wouldn't mind at all -- in fact, I'd be honored.

[menotu]

Many thanks - I'm sure others will find it as useful as I have.

[AndrzejL]

You know that You can do it easily with Thunderbird too?

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,67408.msg549035.html#msg549035

Andy

[eager2no]

I tried Thunderbird about a year ago, and found their implementation of fetching just the headers totally brainless. I can't believe they still have it that way, but they do.
You fetch your mail, Thunderbird stuffs it in your Inbox as if it was a real mail, then when you click on it, it says 'Haha, buddy, I'm just a header, if you want to really download me, FETCH ME AGAIN!'
If you forget to really download some mails, you'll never know by just looking at your message list. Also, these 'I am just a header' messages hog your mailbox space on the server until you remember to download them.

KMail lists your message headers in a table and you can immediately decide what to do with them. The authors could make it even better by taking a page from The Bat! (toggle Receive on/off for all, Delete on/off for all, etc.), but I am happy with it as it is.
This is an excellent 'common sense' spam filter, I wish all e-mail clients had it.

[AndrzejL]

I tried Thunderbird about a year ago, and found their implementation of fetching just the headers totally brainless. I can't believe they still have it that way, but they do.
You fetch your mail, Thunderbird stuffs it in your Inbox as if it was a real mail, then when you click on it, it says 'Haha, buddy, I'm just a header, if you want to really download me, FETCH ME AGAIN!'
If you forget to really download some mails, you'll never know by just looking at your message list. Also, these 'I am just a header' messages hog your mailbox space on the server until you remember to download them.

KMail lists your message headers in a table and you can immediately decide what to do with them. The authors could make it even better by taking a page from The Bat! (toggle Receive on/off for all, Delete on/off for all, etc.), but I am happy with it as it is.
This is an excellent 'common sense' spam filter, I wish all e-mail clients had it.

Yeah and how do You get that table? By downloading the headers of the messages to You machine. Just a second ago You were praising KMail for doing exactly the same thing and now Youre spanking Thunderbird for doing so. Why coz one of them is showing them in the table and the other as a list in Inbox? You can manage them exactly the same way from there (if not better). I can see the author of the message. I can see the header. I can see does it have a attachment... I can delete it or allow it to be dowloaded. Do I want to manage all my messages at the same time? 1 at the time will do just fine... I am not rushing anywhere. I trust Mozilla and I like Firefox. I started to use Thunderbird about year ago and I loved from the first moment. Wasnt as happy about KMail.

I posted here to give users of PCLinuxOS chance of choice. They can see that KMail and Thunderbird can fetch the headers and then manage messages later. If this is what they want they can test them both. There is no need to call great E-mail apps creators brainless just because you do not agree with the way they deal with message headers unless you have wrote a better application...

Thanks for reading. I am unsubscribing.

Andy

[eager2no]

Andy,
I didn't want to offend anyone, I just stated my opinion on a feature I find is poorly implemented.
Here us why:
1. By definition, the message base is supposed to hold messages. Every mail client I know makes sure the message base is always intact. Of course, you as a user can break it, e.g. you can delete the attachment of a received message, but that is your responsibility.
2. In contrast, Thunderbird willfully breaks message integrity: it adds messages to the message base that are not intact messages, just pointers if you like. But these don't belong in a message base. I wonder how they'd show up in an exported message base if you don't fully fetch them.
3. Thunderbird's method facilitates user mistakes: it is easy to forget to fully fetch those messages. You may just close the program, and the message list won't warn you about it.

As for the comparison with KMail:
1. KMail's message base is always intact: it either has a message, or it doesn't. When you check your message list, you can be sure that any message you see is actually in your Inbox. All of it.
2. After fetching the headers, KMail offers you to fetch the messages now, later, or not at all. Thunderbird's method is equivalent to offering option 2 only.
3. Once KMail has fetched the headers, it immediately requires user input about what to do with them. If you choose Fetch Later and then forget to, these messages won't show up in your message list, so you won't be led to believe you have them.

===
Edit:
Andy, you have made over 1100 posts here. An old hand like you shouldn't quit in a huff over a single post you don't like

[AndrzejL]

Andy,
I didn't want to offend anyone, I just stated my opinion on a feature I find is poorly implemented.
Here us why:
1. By definition, the message base is supposed to hold messages. Every mail client I know makes sure the message base is always intact. Of course, you as a user can break it, e.g. you can delete the attachment of a received message, but that is your responsibility.
2. In contrast, Thunderbird willfully breaks message integrity: it adds messages to the message base that are not intact messages, just pointers if you like. But these don't belong in a message base. I wonder how they'd show up in an exported message base if you don't fully fetch them.
3. Thunderbird's method facilitates user mistakes: it is easy to forget to fully fetch those messages. You may just close the program, and the message list won't warn you about it.

As for the comparison with KMail:
1. KMail's message base is always intact: it either has a message, or it doesn't. When you check your message list, you can be sure that any message you see is actually in your Inbox. All of it.
2. After fetching the headers, KMail offers you to fetch the messages now, later, or not at all. Thunderbird's method is equivalent to offering option 2 only.
3. Once KMail has fetched the headers, it immediately requires user input about what to do with them. If you choose Fetch Later and then forget to, these messages won't show up in your message list, so you won't be led to believe you have them.

===
Edit:
Andy, you have made over 1100 posts here. An old hand like you shouldn't quit in a huff over a single post you don't like

Thats ok. I am not offended. These options seem cool.

Thanks for the HowTo.