</para>
</refsect2>
</refsect1>
- <refsect1>
- <title>Other Frequently Asked Questions</title>
- <para>There are some other FAQs that might not fit into another section
- of the document, so they are discussed here.
- </para>
-
- <variablelist>
- <varlistentry><term>I'm using Mutt. Other IMAP sync programs require me to use "set maildir_trash=yes". Do I need to do that with &OfflineIMAP;?</term>
- <listitem><para>
- No. &OfflineIMAP; is smart enough to figure out message deletion without this extra
- crutch. You'll get the best results if you don't use this setting, in
- fact.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>I've upgraded and now &OfflineIMAP;
- crashes when I start it up! Why?</term>
- <listitem><para>You need to upgrade your configuration
- file. See <xref linkend="upgrading.4.0"> at the end of this
- manual.
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>How do I specify the names of my folders?</term>
- <listitem><para>
- You do not need to. &OfflineIMAP; is smart
- enough to automatically figure out what folders are present
- on the IMAP server and synchronize them. You can use the
- <property>folderfilter</property> and <property>nametrans</property>
- configuration file options to request certain folders and rename them
- as they come in if you like.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>How can I prevent certain folders from being synced?</term>
- <listitem><para>
- Use the <property>folderfilter</property> option in the configuration file.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>How can I add or delete a folder?</term>
- <listitem><para>
- &OfflineIMAP; does not currently provide this feature, but if you create a new
- folder on the IMAP server, it will be created locally automatically.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>Are there any other warnings that I should be aware of?</term>
- <listitem><para>
- Yes; see the Notes section below.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>What is the mailbox name recorder (mbnames) for?</term>
- <listitem><para>Some mail readers, such as Mutt, are not capable
- of automatically determining the names of your mailboxes.
- &OfflineIMAP; can help these programs by writing the names
- of the folders in a format you specify. See the example
- <filename>offlineimap.conf</filename> for details.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>Can I synchronize multiple accounts with &OfflineIMAP?</term>
- <listitem><para>Sure. Just name them all in the
- <property>accounts</property> line in the <property>general</property>
- section of the configuration file, and add a per-account section
- for each one.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>Does &OfflineIMAP; support POP?</term>
- <listitem><para>No. POP is not robust enough to do a completely reliable
- multi-machine synchronization like &OfflineIMAP; can do. &OfflineIMAP;
- will not support it.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>Does &OfflineIMAP; support mailbox formats other than Maildir?</term>
- <listitem><para>Not at present. There is no technical reason not to; just no
- demand yet. Maildir is a superior format anyway.
- However, &OfflineIMAP; can sync between two IMAP
- servers, and some IMAP servers support other formats. You
- could install an IMAP server on your local machine and have
- &OfflineIMAP sync to that.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>[technical] Why are your Maildir message filenames so huge?</term>
- <listitem><para>&OfflineIMAP; has two relevant principles: 1) never modifying your
- messages in any way and 2) ensuring 100% reliable synchronizations.
- In order to do a reliable sync, &OfflineIMAP;
- must have a way to
- uniquely identify each e-mail. Three pieces of information are
- required to do this: your account name, the folder name, and the
- message UID. The account name can be calculated from the path in
- which your messages are. The folder name can usually be as well, BUT
- some mail clients move messages between folders by simply moving the
- file, leaving the name intact.
- </para>
- <para>
- So, &OfflineIMAP; must store both a UID folder ID. The folder ID is
- necessary so &OfflineIMAP; can detect a message moved to a different
- folder. &OfflineIMAP; stores the UID (U= number) and an md5sum of the
- foldername (FMD5= number) to facilitate this.
- </para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>What is the speed of &OfflineIMAP;'s sync?</term>
- <listitem><para>OfflineIMAP
- versions 2.0 and above contain a multithreaded system. A good way to
- experiment is by setting <property>maxsyncaccounts</property> to 3 and <property>maxconnections</property> to 3
- in each account clause.
- </para>
- <para>This lets OfflineIMAP open up multiple connections simultaneously.
- That will let it process multiple folders and messages at once. In
- most cases, this will increase performance of the sync.
- </para>
- <para>Don't set the number too high. If you do that, things might actually
- slow down as your link gets saturated. Also, too many connections can
- cause mail servers to have excessive load. Administrators might take
- unkindly to this, and the server might bog down. There are many
- variables in the optimal setting; experimentation may help.
- </para>
- <para>An informal benchmark yields these results for my setup:
- </para>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem><para>10 minutes with MacOS X Mail.app "manual cache"
- </para></listitem>
- <listitem><para>5 minutes with GNUS agent sync</para></listitem>
- <listitem><para>20 seconds with OfflineIMAP 1.x</para></listitem>
- <listitem><para>9 seconds with OfflineIMAP 2.x</para></listitem>
- <listitem><para>3 seconds with OfflineIMAP 3.x "cold start"</para></listitem>
- <listitem><para>2 seconds with OfflineIMAP 3.x "held connection"</para></listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </listitem></varlistentry>
- </variablelist>
- </refsect1>
-
<refsect1>
<title>Conforming To</title>
<itemizedlist>
</para>
</refsect2>
- <refsect2>
- <title>Use with Evolution</title>
- <para>&OfflineIMAP; can work with Evolution. To do so, first configure
- your &OfflineIMAP; account to have
- <option>sep = /</option> in its configuration. Then, configure
- Evolution with the
- "Maildir-format mail directories" server type. For the path, you will need to
- specify the name of the top-level folder
- <emphasis>inside</emphasis> your &OfflineIMAP; storage location.
- You're now set!
- </para>
- </refsect2>
-
- <refsect2>
- <title>Use with KMail</title>
- <para>At this time, I believe that &OfflineIMAP; with Maildirs
- is not compatible
- with KMail. KMail cannot work in any mode other than to move
- all messages out of all folders immediately, which (besides being annoying
- and fundamentally broken) is incompatible with
- &OfflineIMAP;.
- </para>
- <para>
- However, I have made KMail version 3 work well with
- &OfflineIMAP; by installing an IMAP server on my local
- machine, having &OfflineIMAP; sync to that, and pointing
- KMail at the same server.
- </para>
- </refsect2>
<refsect2>
<title>Mailing List</title>