hello all,

I have two users on one machine. This machine runs Mandriva 2008
spring. Both these users have their own account and their own kmail
account. I need to combine these two kmail accounts for one of the two
users.

Is there a way to do this?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks to all in advance.

On Sunday 29 June 2008 03:40, someone who identifies as *n* wrote
in /alt.os.linux.mandriva:/

> hello all,
>
> I have two users on one machine. This machine runs Mandriva 2008
> spring. Both these users have their own account and their own kmail
> account. I need to combine these two kmail accounts for one of the two
> users.

A sudden urge to spy on your spouse's e-mail? :p

> Is there a way to do this?

Well, I see two options. Either you give both user accounts the same UID -
which may not be an option given that both user accounts already exist and
have most likely already been used at full - or you have to make sure that
both /KMail/ clients read their mail from the same location.

In the latter case, you could symlink the maildirs or mboxes - whichever you
chose - to where the other user account reads them from. On my older
Mandrake here this is the hidden *~/.Mail* directory. This does of course
imply that you must give one user account read access to the other user
account's home directory and their parent mail directory.

Another option could be that you have both e-mail clients use a common
shared filesystem - e.g. somewhere under */var* or */srv* - to which they
both have read _and_ write access, and then symlink from there, or perhaps
use /mount/ with the /--bind/ option to mount that particular filesystem to
their respective mail parent directory.

There is however a caveat emptor here... /KMail/ allows the user to choose
- at least on my system - whether mailfolders are stored as maildirs - i.e.
directories in which each e-mail is a separate file - or as mboxes - i.e.
as files in which each e-mail forms a separate subsection. If either user
account uses a different format from the other one, you're /foobarred./ :p

--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

On Sunday 29 June 2008 03:53, someone who identifies as *Aragorn* wrote
in /alt.os.linux.mandriva:/

> On Sunday 29 June 2008 03:40, someone who identifies as *n* wrote
> in /alt.os.linux.mandriva:/
>
>> hello all,
>>
>> I have two users on one machine. This machine runs Mandriva 2008
>> spring. Both these users have their own account and their own kmail
>> account. I need to combine these two kmail accounts for one of the two
>> users.
>> Is there a way to do this?
>
> Well, I see two options. Either you give both user accounts the same UID
> - which may not be an option given that both user accounts already exist
> and have most likely already been used at full - or you have to make sure
> that both /KMail/ clients read their mail from the same location.
>
> In the latter case, you could symlink the maildirs or mboxes - whichever
> you chose - to where the other user account reads them from. On my older
> Mandrake here this is the hidden *~/.Mail* directory. This does of course
> imply that you must give one user account read access to the other user
> account's home directory and their parent mail directory.
>
> Another option could be that you have both e-mail clients use a common
> shared filesystem - e.g. somewhere under */var* or */srv* - to which they
> both have read _and_ write access, and then symlink from there, or perhaps
> use /mount/ with the /--bind/ option to mount that particular filesystem
> to their respective mail parent directory.
>
> There is however a caveat emptor here... /KMail/ allows the user to
> choose - at least on my system - whether mailfolders are stored as
> maildirs - i.e. directories in which each e-mail is a separate file - or
> as mboxes - i.e. as files in which each e-mail forms a separate
> subsection. If either user account uses a different format from the other
> one, you're /foobarred./ :p

Thinking of it, you also have a third option, i.e. to set up an IMAP
mailserver and have both user accounts get their mail from there. That
way, the mail would normally still be on the server unless one of the users
decides to explicitly delete it from there.

A similar functionality can be obtained via POP3 mail accounts, on the
condition that one of the two users configures their /KMail/ _not_ to
delete the mail from the server after downloading, and then the other user
can download it in duplicate, given that this other user also has the mail
account's login and password.

They key to what your intended purpose is, is - once again - to stop
thinking Windhoze and start thinking UNIX and multi-user operating
system. ;-)

--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:53:39 +0200, Aragorn wrote:

> On Sunday 29 June 2008 03:40, someone who identifies as *n* wrote in
> /alt.os.linux.mandriva:/
>
>> hello all,
>>
>> I have two users on one machine. This machine runs Mandriva 2008
>> spring. Both these users have their own account and their own kmail
>> account. I need to combine these two kmail accounts for one of the two
>> users.
>
> A sudden urge to spy on your spouse's e-mail? :p

no

rotfl

One employee quit. The second used the quitter's computer for a couple
weeks. Then she got her own.

Now I need to combine the email accounts so that I can preserve the
incoming and sent mails from the quitter's account for future reference.

I was hoping that there would be an easy way to combine the two sent mail
etc. directories and let kmail re-index everything.

:)

On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:01:59 -0400, n <n@n.com> wrote:

> I was hoping that there would be an easy way to combine the two sent mail
> etc. directories and let kmail re-index everything.

Add the new user to the group of the old user, make ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail and
all of it's subdirectories/files group readable. Then have the new user use
kmail to import the old user's mail.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

--
Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email.
(nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for
use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)

On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 21:01:59 -0500,
n wrote:

> On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:53:39 +0200, Aragorn wrote:
>
> > On Sunday 29 June 2008 03:40, someone who identifies as *n* wrote in
> > /alt.os.linux.mandriva:/
> >
> >> hello all,
> >>
> >> I have two users on one machine. This machine runs Mandriva 2008
> >> spring. Both these users have their own account and their own
> >> kmail account. I need to combine these two kmail accounts for one
> >> of the two users.
> >
> > A sudden urge to spy on your spouse's e-mail? :p
>
> no
>
> rotfl
>
> One employee quit. The second used the quitter's computer for a
> couple weeks. Then she got her own.
>
> Now I need to combine the email accounts so that I can preserve the
> incoming and sent mails from the quitter's account for future
> reference.
>
> I was hoping that there would be an easy way to combine the two sent
> mail etc. directories and let kmail re-index everything.

Install the imap package (currently, imap-2006k-1mdv2008.1), along with
any dependencies. Then run the following three commands, as root:

chkconfig imap on
chkconfig xinetd on
service xinetd restart

Log in as the quitter's user, and run KMail. Add a new account of IMAP
type, with the server being "localhost" and the auth info being the
*other* user's login name and password (I don't use KMail, so you're on
your own as to how to do this). Once the account is added to KMail, add
the appropriate folders *within that account* to mirror the local ones
that are already there for the default account. Go into each local
folder in turn, select all messages, copy, go into the corresponding
IMAP folder, paste; lather, rinse, repeat. :)

When all messages have been copied from the various local folders into
the matching IMAP folders, close KMail and logout. Login as the "other
user", open KMail, and add the same new IMAP account there - server is
still "localhost", and the auth info is *also* still the login name and
password of this "other user". Presto, the folders full of mail will
automagically show up; you can now proceed to consolidate them however
you like, by copying messages from one set of folders into the other.

Were it me, I would again copy from the local folders into the IMAP
ones, and then abandon the use of the local folders entirely. One of
the many advantages of using IMAP is that this combined mail store is
now fully available to your "other user" from her new 'puter, merely by
creating an IMAP account within her KMail there, and pointing it at
this box as the server (by its hostname, if that name resolves properly
on her system, or by its IP address if it doesn't).

HTH!

--
Bill Mullen
RLU #270075

Quoth David W. Hodgins :

> On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:01:59 -0400, n <n@n.com> wrote:
>
>> I was hoping that there would be an easy way to combine the two sent
>> mail etc. directories and let kmail re-index everything.
>
> Add the new user to the group of the old user, make
> ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail and
> all of it's subdirectories/files group readable. Then have the new user
> use kmail to import the old user's mail.

Except that kmail will "import" anything but kmail.

As discovered earlier in alt.os.linux.mandriva:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.o...2aeb39ba9200f3

The easiest way to do what n wishes is, in fact, to combine the two sent
mail etc. directories and let kmail re-index everything!

The gotcha is... you must delete kmail's various index files.

Look at:

~/.Mail
--or--
~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/mail/

cd (to where your mail is stored)
rm .*.index*
restart kmail
--
The Man in the Yellow Hat
Linux with a monkey, since 1996.