Re: Similarities between expiration and scoring

[Eric S Fraga <ucecesf@ucl.ac.uk>]

On Fri, 14 May 2010 14:21:03 +0200, Lluís <xscript@gmx.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi there.
> 
> I've been a happy user of automatic message expiration for some
> time. My current workflow is:
>    * maintain new/unread messages on their folder undefinately

Agreed, sort of.  See next point.

>    * maintain read (but non-disposed messages) on their folder
>      undefinately (as I've considered they contain some information
>      that could be useful somewhere in the future)

Not agreed.  I am a big fan of the zero inbox approach so all emails
are dealt with when read.  That need not mean anything more than
creating a task for a given email and adding the task to whatever time
and task management system you use (I use org-mode).  The email is
deleted, having extracted any necessary information from it and stored
it with the task definition.

>    * move disposed messages to trash (account-specific)

Always.

>    * move sent messages to sent folder (account-specific)

Yes; happens automatically when I send.

>    * when entering a trash or sent folder, expire messages older than
>      an account-specific age.

Sure.  Trash for me is deleted daily; sent messages are kept forever
but are completely out of the way.

> Now, after some time following this scheme, I've found some weaknesses
> to it:
>    * I've ended up accumulating a relatively big bunch of messages of
>      the second type

See the zero inbox approach.

>    * sometimes I'd like to do a quick search on a specific mailing
>      list, or just view past messages of current thread, but my
>      messages are split between the list's folder and a huge trash
>      folder

Mairix is good for searching large email folders quickly.  And the
resulting messages can easily be threaded so that it doesn't matter if
different parts of an email conversation are in different folders.

>    * disposing messages into trash requires too much time, as the trash folder
>      is overcrowded

What format of trash folder do you use?  Maybe a different format (mh?
maildir?) would be better?

> Expiring already provides a hide action, which I can base on age, but:
>    * I don't know how to toggle visibility of hidden messages (either
>      all, or something like "unhide current thread").

I also wish to know how to do this!!

>    * searching through 'wl-summary-pick' only applies to visible
>      messages.

I never use wl for searching, relying on mairix instead.

-- 
Eric S Fraga
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