copying and renaming mailboxes to clean up directories

[Thorsten Büker]

Dear Any, dear list,

> Hmm, I'm using v2.2.13 here.  Maybe that option/feature didn't exist in 
> 2.1.x.

The manuals I just checked gave no hint on the necessary version.

> You should probably check if other message flags (Important, Answered, 
> etc) are copied.  I can't remember.

At least "answered" would be nice, from that reason I currently tend to 
the proceeding via Message-ID lines.

> Have a look at any cyrus.header file and you'll see something like:
> 
> ----------------------------------
> Cyrus mailbox header
> "The best thing about this system was that it had lots of goals."
>          --Jim Morris on Andrew
> user.morgan     3e671c013f511626
> morgan  lrswipcda
> ----------------------------------
> 
> The string "3e671c013f511626" is the unique mailbox ID for this particular 
> mailbox.  It is the key value used in the seen files to track which 
> message UIDs have been seen for each mailbox.

Thanks for this clearification! After comparing some cyrus.header files 
from different folders and "my" seen file, I think I understood ;-)

While copying the mailbox the message UIDs change, at least as far as I 
can see. So, one might be able to replace the mailbox IDs in the seen 
file be the mailbox IDs of the copied version, but the message UIDs 
referenced to are out-dated. Or do I miss something?

>> Another attempt:
>> Are there any reasons, why something like
>>
>> ORIG=`grep -R -e '^Message-ID:' $originalmbox | awk '{print $2}' | sort`
>> KOPIE=`grep -R -e '^Message-ID:' $copyofmbox | awk '{print $2}' | sort`
>>
>> some diff and some improved awking (spaces won't work in case of spaces in 
>> folder names) is not a sufficient way to create a list of files, which might 
>> be deleted in the original mailbox?
> 
> That sounds like a reasonable approach, but obviously you should be 
> careful anytime you modify the cyrus files directly.  :)

Well, actually only the files/message themselves are touched. Ok, 
they're not simply touched but deleted ;-)
Further Cyrus files (cyrus.*, seen state, subscription list)
are not affected. Furthermore one might assume that they correspond to 
the mailbox contents after deleting any "wrong" files/messages.

I hope to find a reasonable approach to create a list of unnecessary 
Message-IDs and their corresponding files, which might be piped to 
remove. Keep you informed.

kind regards, thanks again,
   Thorsten