Re: gnus INBOX housekeeping, kept (copies of) mail lying around

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Gijs Hillenius <gijs@hillenius.net> writes:

> On  5 Jan 2016, Eric Abrahamsen wrote:
>
>> Gijs Hillenius <gijs@hillenius.net> writes:
>>
>>> On  5 Jan 2016, Gijs Hillenius wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Doing some Gnus imap folders housekeeping this morning, I found that
>>>> 8000 messages (called 131940.  131941. etcetera) /hiding/ in the
>>>> imap's INBOX. It looks like these are all emails that I've 'deleted'
>>>> in Gnus, so they don't show. But for some reason they're not
>>>> actually deleted.
>>>>
>>>> Is this a setting I messed up? I recall there used to be such a
>>>> feature, but I don't remember what that was called. I've been
>>>> searching the manual for this, so far without the result I hoped to
>>>> find.
>>>>
>>>> I would appreciate a few hints.
>>>
>>> encouraged by the two replies...
>>>
>>> I just sent myself two emails (from a throw-away gmail account), and
>>> notice that these messages end up on the system twice.
>>>
>>> My nnimap-split-fancy places them in the correct nnimap mail group,
>>> but a "copy" (or perhaps the original) stays in the INBOX, hidden.
>>>
>>> Does that ring a bell, with anyone?
>>
>> Is it a Gmail address?
>>
>> Not that that immediately solves the problem, but it would be useful
>> information. Also, what's your Gnus version?
>
> The test email came from gmail. My server is for the vanity domain I'm
> currently posting with
>
> Gnus v5.13, in GNU Emacs 24.5.1 (Debian)
>
> a snippet from my server settings:
>
>       (nnimap-inbox "INBOX")
>       (nnimap-split-methods nnmail-split-fancy)
>       (nnimap-unsplittable-articles
>        '(%Deleted))
>
> I wonder about that ^^^ last line, I don't actually recognise it.

This will be the problem. The normal value of that var is (%Deleted
%Seen). Removing %Seen means that all messages in your Inbox will
continue being split every time you check for new mail, even though
you've already seen them, and they're already in the Inbox.

Essentially that means that all messages are copied from the Inbox back
into the Inbox each time you check mail.

I pushed a change to nnimap.el some time ago that prevents the splitting
process from splitting mail into the group it's already in, but you
probably don't have that change in your version of Gnus.

In the meantime you can fix the problem by setting
`nnimap-unsplittable-articles' back to '(%Deleted %Seen). If you leave
unread messages in your Inbox for a while, you'll still have a bit of
the same problem. But the main issue will be fixed.

Try that!

Eric

>
> A summary of my fancy-split (with lots of lines omitted)
>
> (setq nnimap-split-fancy
>       '(| 
>       ("From" "googlealerts.*" "INBOX.google-alerts")
>       (any "c[...]" "INBOX.tmp")
>       ;; Invoke the BBDB
>       (: (lambda ()
>            (car (bbdb/gnus-split-method))))
>       ;; Default mailbox
>       ("INBOX" "")))