6.3.13.10 Mail Folders

nnfolder is a back end for storing each mail group in a separate file. Each file is in the standard Un*x mbox format. nnfolder will add extra headers to keep track of article numbers and arrival dates.

When the marks file is used (which it is by default), nnfolder servers have the property that you may backup them using tar or similar, and later be able to restore them into Gnus (by adding the proper nnfolder server) and have all your marks be preserved. Marks for a group are usually stored in a file named as the mbox file with .mrk concatenated to it (but see nnfolder-marks-file-suffix) within the nnfolder directory. Individual nnfolder groups are also possible to backup, use G m to restore the group (after restoring the backup into the nnfolder directory).

Virtual server settings:

nnfolder-directory

All the nnfolder mail boxes will be stored under this directory. The default is the value of message-directory (whose default is ~/Mail)

nnfolder-active-file

The name of the active file. The default is ~/Mail/active.

nnfolder-newsgroups-file

The name of the group descriptions file. See Newsgroups File Format. The default is ~/Mail/newsgroups

nnfolder-get-new-mail

If non-nil, nnfolder will read incoming mail. The default is t

nnfolder-save-buffer-hook

Hook run before saving the folders. Note that Emacs does the normal backup renaming of files even with the nnfolder buffers. If you wish to switch this off, you could say something like the following in your .emacs file:

          (defun turn-off-backup ()
            (set (make-local-variable 'backup-inhibited) t))
          
          (add-hook 'nnfolder-save-buffer-hook 'turn-off-backup)
     

nnfolder-delete-mail-hook

Hook run in a buffer narrowed to the message that is to be deleted. This function can be used to copy the message to somewhere else, or to extract some information from it before removing it.

nnfolder-nov-is-evil

If non-nil, this back end will ignore any NOV files. The default is nil.

nnfolder-nov-file-suffix

The extension for NOV files. The default is .nov.

nnfolder-nov-directory

The directory where the NOV files should be stored. If nil, nnfolder-directory is used.

nnfolder-marks-is-evil

If non-nil, this back end will ignore any marks files. The default is nil.

nnfolder-marks-file-suffix

The extension for marks files. The default is .mrk.

nnfolder-marks-directory

The directory where the marks files should be stored. If nil, nnfolder-directory is used.

If you have lots of nnfolder-like files you'd like to read with nnfolder, you can use the M-x nnfolder-generate-active-file command to make nnfolder aware of all likely files in nnfolder-directory. This only works if you use long file names, though.