[Dovecot] OT: Looking for a robust IMAP client

[Stewart Dean]

Charles Marcus wrote:
> On 12/15/2008, Ed W (lists at wildgooses.com) wrote:
>   
>>> Thunderbird was able to do a mass select of one of the two messages,
>>> and deleted 65,000, but after that it locked up.
>>>       
>
> I'd never try to delete that many at once...
>
> It very likely wasn't locked up though, it probably was working
> furiously to try to do what you told it to do - the problem is, it can
> *appear* to be locked up, even for many minutes, but if you let it go,
> it will eventually finish (or time out)...
>   
Pine did it in2-3 minutes  with one imapd instance; TBird was thrashing 
mightly for 20+ minutes with 4-8 imapd instances, and no progress in 
site....even after Pine had deleted the inbox down to 2000 messages.
> But, if you ever try this again, it helps a LOT if you do a
> 'SHIFT-delete' (press/hold the shift key, then tap the Delete button on
> the keyboard) - this bypasses the Trash - otherwise, it isn't deleting
> them it is MOVING them to the Trash, which can take a long time for that
> many messages.
>   
Was not moving to Trash, just directly expunging stuff that had been 
marked for deletion
> I usually work with a thousand or so at a time if I need to do something
> like this, and it works, although it certainly isn't instantaneous...
>   
With <sigh, I know, I know> a mbox format inbox, I don't know that it 
matters much whether it's 10 files or 10,000...it's still gotta haul out 
the whole ugly thing.
We had a bad, bad user that got up to 1.3GB...and our server still 
handled it without undue distress.  Must be some amazingly optimized 
file system I/O in the O/S (AIX)

-- 
==== Once upon a time, the Internet was a friendly, 
neighbors-helping-neighbors small town, and no one locked their doors. 
Now it's like an apartment in Bed-Stuy: you need three heavy duty 
pick-proof locks, one of those braces that goes from the lock to the 
floor, and bars on the windows.... ==== Stewart Dean, Unix System Admin, 
Bard College, New York 12504 sdean at bard.edu voice: 845-758-7475, fax: 
845-758-7035