6.5.2 Expiring in IMAP

Even though nnimap is not a proper nnmail derived back end, it supports most features in regular expiring (see Expiring Mail). Unlike splitting in IMAP (see Splitting in IMAP) it does not clone the nnmail variables (i.e., creating nnimap-expiry-wait) but reuse the nnmail variables. What follows below are the variables used by the nnimap expiry process.

A note on how the expire mark is stored on the IMAP server is appropriate here as well. The expire mark is translated into a imap client specific mark, gnus-expire, and stored on the message. This means that likely only Gnus will understand and treat the gnus-expire mark properly, although other clients may allow you to view client specific flags on the message. It also means that your server must support permanent storage of client specific flags on messages. Most do, fortunately.

If expiring IMAP mail seems very slow, try setting the server variable nnimap-search-uids-not-since-is-evil.

nnmail-expiry-wait

nnmail-expiry-wait-function

These variables are fully supported. The expire value can be a number, the symbol immediate or never.

nnmail-expiry-target

This variable is supported, and internally implemented by calling the nnmail functions that handle this. It contains an optimization that if the destination is a IMAP group on the same server, the article is copied instead of appended (that is, uploaded again).