Subject: Automatic purging of dated messages

From: Joe Britton <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 11:08:46 -0500 (CDT)

Is there a way to keep Pine from automatically asking me if I wish to
delete messages I've saved from months past.  At the beginning of each
month I am asked if I'd like to delete this old mail.  On several
occasions I have inadvertantly replied "yes" and lost important archives.
BTW I've checked for a setup option to turn off this pine 'feature'.

Also, is it possible to perform a search of all mail folders at once
instead of sequentially? 

Joe Britton

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From: Ed Greshko <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 08:07:51 +0800 (GMT)

> BTW I've checked for a setup option to turn off this pine 'feature'.

	In your .pinerc file look for:

last-time-prune-questioned=96.9

	Set it =05.12 and wait for January 2006.   Hummmm...wonder if
pine is year 2000 safe.  :-) :-)

	Ed

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From: [email-masked] (Ramanuj Basu)
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 21:40:03 GMT

I don't know the answer to your second question, but I, too, got annoyed with
Pine's insistence on moving files at the start of each month.  You can postpone
(but apparently not turn off) this behavior by manually editing your .pinerc
file (I use pico to do this).

Near the bottom of the file .pinerc (below the line that says "## Set within or
by Pine: No need to edit below this line ##") is a line that starts out with
"last-time-prune-questioned=" and you'll see that the value is year:month.  I've
set mine to 99.12 so I won't be bothered until the year 2000.

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From: Mike Brudenell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 09:37:38 +0100 (BST)

Perhaps things could do with clarifying a little here? ...

Pine only offers to rename (and delete old versions of):

	* The "default-fcc" folder (used to automatically keep copies
	  of messages you send;

	* Any folders listed in the "pruned-folders" configuration
	  variable.

The periodic changing of the former is definitely sensible, to prevent it
accumulating indefinitely.  (I speak from experience:-)  [I trust you're
not using the "sent-mail" folder for saving messages you receive from
others?]

The latter only occurs if you explicitly set it up.

So I presume you're disliking the pruning of the sent-mail folder?  If so,
then you can certainly fool Pine into not pruning by setting the
"last-time-prune-questioned" appropriately (this will, presumably, affect
pruning of "pruned-folders" too).

However a better way of working might be to set up an entry in your
Address Book for people you correspond with regularly along with an fcc
for the entry.  This will override the default-fcc, and save any message
sent to to this recipient (as the first-named person in the "To:" field)
into the nominated folder directly (instead of the default "sent-mail").

Any other messages you send will get filed into the "sent-mail" folder
(courtesy of the "default-fcc" variable), which would then grow
indefinitely.  The monthly rotation of this folder helps serve as a
reminder that perhaps it is time for you to sort through the old
"sent-mail" folder(s) and delete any message copies you don't need any
longer (most of them, in my case, after a month or so!).  The remainder
can be re-saved to more relevant folders or back into the (current)
sent-mail folder.

Just a thought...

Cheers,

-- 
Mike Brudenell                                         <[email-masked]>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Computing Service, University of York, Heslington, York, YO1 5DD, UK
Tel: +44-1904-433811  FAX: +44-1904-433740  http://www.york.ac.uk/~pmb1/

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From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 11:49:53 -0700

> pine is year 2000 safe.  :-) :-)

Pine is sort-of 2000 safe here, but you need to set it to =105.12 to
wait until 2006 ;-)