claws-mail-labels

by Morgan Aldridge [email protected]

OVERVIEW

claws-mail-labels is a multi-function 'Action' script for Claws Mail to aid in managing email message 'labels' (tags, essentially) within Gmail and/or Google Workspace IMAP accounts. It utilizes mairix for performant indexing & searching email messages in the claws-mail(1) local IMAP cache, bending the rules a bit to perform fast re-indexing of individual labels.

IMPORTANT: This project is very much a work-in-progress and developed specifically for my needs. Use at your own risk!

Prerequisites

• perl(1)
• mairix(1)
• An IMAP account synchronized for offline use
• Claws Mail 'Actions' configured to execute claws-mail-labels:
  • "Show Message Labels": ~/libexec/claws-mail-actions -f %f -l
  • "Reindex Message Labels": ~/libexec/claws-mail-actions -f %f -r

Suggested

• zenity
• Fast storage device to improve message indexing/re-indexing time

Limitations

• It can only search for labels of a single message
• It only supports IMAP accounts (though could be modified to support POP & local MH accounts)
• It cannot find messages that have not yet been downloaded from the IMAP server and stored locally
• It cannot [yet] search across multiple accounts

Directory Structure

~/.claws-mail/
  labelscache/
    <server>/
      <mailbox>/
        mairixrc
        mairixrc-reindex
        mairixdb
      .../
    ../

USAGE

Initialize Mailbox

One can initialize claws-mail-labels's mairix(1) configuration files for Google Gmail/Workspace IMAP account by executing (replacing <mailbox> with the email address, e.g. "[email protected]"):

~/libexec/claws-mail-labels -m <mailbox>

Mailbox Full Index

Once a mailbox has been initialized, one can perform a full index by executing (again, replacing <mailbox with the email address, e.g. "[email protected]"):

~/libexec/claws-mail-labels -m <mailbox> -i

Configure Claws Mail Actions

Message Labels/Show

Add a "Shell command" Action:

• Menu name: Message Labels/Show
• Command: ~/libexec/claws-mail-labels -f %f -l

With Zenity

If you'd like a nicer GUI display, use the following command instead:

~/libexec/claws-mail-labels -f %f -l | zenity --list --title="Labels" --text="%f" --hide-header --column="Label"

Message Labels/Re-index

Add a "Shell command" Action:

• Menu name: Message Labels/Re-index
• Command: ~/libexec/claws-mail-labels -f %f -r

REFERENCE

• Claws Mail FAQ: Actions
• Claws Mail FAQ: Using Claws Mail with other programs
  • Claws Mail FAQ: Using Claws Mail with other programs (How can I use Claws Mail with mairix?
• Wikipedia: MH Message Handling System
• Zenity Manual

LICENSE

Released under the MIT License.