Info Catalog gnus: Babyl gnus: Choosing a Mail Back End gnus: MH Spool

gnus: Mail Spool

 
 6.4.13.3 Mail Spool
 ...................
 
 The “nnml” spool mail format isn’t compatible with any other known
 format.  It should be used with some caution.
 
    If you use this back end, Gnus will split all incoming mail into
 files, one file for each mail, and put the articles into the
 corresponding directories under the directory specified by the
 ‘nnml-directory’ variable.  The default value is ‘~/Mail/’.
 
    You do not have to create any directories beforehand; Gnus will take
 care of all that.
 
    If you have a strict limit as to how many files you are allowed to
 store in your account, you should not use this back end.  As each mail
 gets its own file, you might very well occupy thousands of inodes within
 a few weeks.  If this is no problem for you, and it isn’t a problem for
 you having your friendly systems administrator walking around, madly,
 shouting “Who is eating all my inodes?!  Who?  Who!?!”, then you should
 know that this is probably the fastest format to use.  You do not have
 to trudge through a big mbox file just to read your new mail.
 
    ‘nnml’ is probably the slowest back end when it comes to article
 splitting.  It has to create lots of files, and it also generates NOV
 databases for the incoming mails.  This makes it possibly the fastest
 back end when it comes to reading mail.
 
    Virtual server settings:
 
 ‘nnml-directory’
      All ‘nnml’ directories will be placed under this directory.  The
      default is the value of ‘message-directory’ (whose default value is
      ‘~/Mail’).
 
 ‘nnml-active-file’
      The active file for the ‘nnml’ server.  The default is
      ‘~/Mail/active’.
 
 ‘nnml-newsgroups-file’
      The ‘nnml’ group descriptions file.  Newsgroups File
      Format.  The default is ‘~/Mail/newsgroups’.
 
 ‘nnml-get-new-mail’
      If non-‘nil’, ‘nnml’ will read incoming mail.  The default is ‘t’.
 
 ‘nnml-nov-is-evil’
      If non-‘nil’, this back end will ignore any NOV files.  The default
      is ‘nil’.
 
 ‘nnml-nov-file-name’
      The name of the NOV files.  The default is ‘.overview’.
 
 ‘nnml-prepare-save-mail-hook’
      Hook run narrowed to an article before saving.
 
 ‘nnml-use-compressed-files’
      If non-‘nil’, ‘nnml’ will allow using compressed message files.
      This requires ‘auto-compression-mode’ to be enabled (
      Compressed Files (emacs)Compressed Files.).  If the value of
      ‘nnml-use-compressed-files’ is a string, it is used as the file
      extension specifying the compression program.  You can set it to
      ‘.bz2’ if your Emacs supports it.  A value of ‘t’ is equivalent to
      ‘.gz’.
 
 ‘nnml-compressed-files-size-threshold’
      Default size threshold for compressed message files.  Message files
      with bodies larger than that many characters will be automatically
      compressed if ‘nnml-use-compressed-files’ is non-‘nil’.
 
    If your ‘nnml’ groups and NOV files get totally out of whack, you can
 do a complete update by typing ‘M-x nnml-generate-nov-databases’.  This
 command will trawl through the entire ‘nnml’ hierarchy, looking at each
 and every article, so it might take a while to complete.  A better
 interface to this functionality can be found in the server buffer (
 Server Commands).
 

Info Catalog gnus: Babyl gnus: Choosing a Mail Back End gnus: MH Spool