On 07/11/2023 16.34, Tim via users wrote:
On Tue, 2023-11-07 at 10:17 +1100, fedora@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
The server is configured as pop3 with the option to leave the
messages on the server.
After clicking "Get Messages" I often get no reaction for a while,
and click again in a few seconds.
In this case, after the new messages are downloaded, a second
download starts and the same messages are fetched again.
Normally, only new messages are downloaded in this situation (so none
on a second download), as it should be.
If I download from another client then I will get these messages
again, which is OK as each client should know what it already has.
I have one "main" client which downloads messages, removing them from
the server.
When away from the main server, I often collect messages using other
clients, leaving the messages on the server.
This is when the problem shows.
I'll state the obvious first, then go into more detail...
POP3 is really not good for leaving messages on the server.
I do not leave messages on the server. Let me clarify this.
I usually read messages by downloading and removing them.
At times, when I do not have access to my main client, and I need to check my mail,
I will ready by downloading and leaving. This is a small number of messages,
until I get to my main client.
What would be nice is to have the "Gem Messages" icon go inactive while a download is in progress.
It will both indicate that the click took, and avoid a double download.
Even more
so when more than one mail client is used. And it'll depend on how the
server works. It never used to do that, and changes to the spec
introduced the feature. We all know how well specs are (not) adhered
to, and how different ones are interpreted or used and ignored, I hope.
POP3 is not efficient at keeping messages and letting you download
specific ones. This may simply be a speed issue for you that you may
not notice, or care about. Though it gets worse with the more messages
kept on the server (mail spool files, wherever they are get more
painful to deal with the bigger they get). You may be lucky, and that
(speed) may be the only thing you ever have to deal with.
I know that pop3 is the "old way", but as long as it works for me I will stick with
it rather than learn a new trick.
Though I do have imap available on my mail server if I ever want to use it.
The server may simply number each message from 1 to however many there
are, as the only way of identifying and dealing with the stored
message. If you delete some, the remaining may keep their message
numbers, *OR* the whole lot may be renumbered from 1 to however many
there are. If it renumbers them, your mail clients will have little
hope in working in the manner you desire if they simply deal with
message numbers.
Alternatively, your clients may fetch a list of messages with their
unique message IDs, and they may keep a database of which IDs they've
dealt with. This is more robust, but mayn't always be supported on
servers and clients. And, I believe, it's still possible that a server
could change message IDs (heck knows why, but I do recall some
programmers mentioning that).
But, either way, you don't have any way of identifying a message has
been read elsewhere. Each message appears new on each client. This
can be an organisational pain if you deal with a lot of mail.
This is the kind of thing that IMAP is meant for. It's designed to
handle picking and choosing which messages to fetch (on the mail server
and the client side). It's designed for the server to flag read
messages as already being read, so every mail client that accesses them
can tell the read from the unread. It's designed for messages to stay
on the server, although you can shift them from server to a client if
you want to. But normally when you read them, you cache a local copy
while leaving them on the server. It's kinda like how many webmail
services work, though you use a local mail client rather than a general
purpose web-browser, and you *can* have much better features.
Of course there are drawbacks, some people find IMAP slower, because
it's dealing with each message one-by-one as you read them. I dare say
some IMAP clients could just sync your whole inbox when you connect,
and so by the time you get around to reading the next message you
already have it, so it'd feel the same as a finished POP3 download.
But I certainly would expect this to be quicker than webmail.
And IMAP isn't always available with some services. Though you can use
one service to pull all your mail from everywhere using whatever
protocols they support, then access your mail from the central server
using IMAP. That's more or less what I do, except that my central
server is on my LAN not the WWW, I don't need to access email away from
base.
Thanks for the detailed explanation.
--
Eyal at Home (fedora@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
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