[lug] grep as imap client?

[Hugh Brown]

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Ferdinand Schmid wrote:

> On Thursday 03 March 2005 01:14, Daniel Webb wrote:
> <snip>
> > How does this work?  Do they use the IMAP search features?  I have found
> > IMAP searches to be unreasonably slow for a lot of large folders.  Or do
> > they build a local index?  Are there any free solutions other than
> > mairix that can search huge amounts of mail in a few seconds, and
> > without needing a local copy of the mail?
>
> Many IMAP servers implement search functionality.  A smart IMAP client will
> transmit the search request to the IMAP server and the server then performs
> the search locally.  I believe you could view it as executing a search
> command remotely.  This type integration works properly with Thunderbird,
> Mozilla, kmail, mulberry, ...  The main developer of mulberry, Cyrus Daboo,
> can actually tell you quite a bit about cyrus-imap ;)
>
> Ferdinand
>


The problem with the imap search functionality (based on my limited
research) is that it is tied to an individual mailbox.  I've often wanted
to search all of the subscribed folders (using grep foo *) or some such.
I know evolution has the virtual folder functionality but it was pretty
slow in the past and I've got users that want a terminal based option.

Hugh