Re: import mail messages like mhc?

[Robert Goldman <rpgoldman@sift.info>]

> Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:30:18 +0100
> From: Ben Alexander <bva@alexanderonline.org>
> Subject: Re: [Orgmode] import mail messages like mhc?
> To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> Cc: bremner@unb.ca
> Message-ID: <DBE523AC-B6FC-4B4C-88C2-2E6A9A328AAB@alexanderonline.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> 
> On 2008-Oct-25, at 16:39, emacs-orgmode-request@gnu.org wrote:
>> From: bremner@unb.ca
>> Date: 25 October 2008 13:10:27 BST
>> To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
>> Subject: [Orgmode] import mail messages like mhc?
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi All;
>>
>> I am currently using a Frankenstein-duct-tape-monster made from mhc
>> and org-mode to track time and manage todos. For various reasons I
>> would like to switch to just org-mode. One thing I really like about
>> mhc is the ability to semi-automatically turn a mail message (in
>> e.g. mew, gnus, wanderlust) into an agenda item/todo.  Partly this is
>> because mhc agenda items are MH messages, but the thing I would like
>> to copy is that it reads the message body and surprisingly often
>> guesses the date and time of an appointment. Before I try to port this
>> to org-mode, has someone already done something similar?
>>
>> David
>>
> 
> 
> Completely unrelated to org-mode:
> I would love to move my email to Emacs and use something like this,  
> but I the only solutions I can understand rely on moving mail from my  
> IMAP based inbox onto the local system.  This is good; I want offline  
> access.  But this is bad: I want to refile email entries and move the  
> messages on IMAP server into folders.  Everything I've read indicates  
> that once the mail has been downloaded to my laptop, any organization  
> is only local, and not synced back to the IMAP folders.  (And no,  
> unfortunately I don't have login access to my IMAP server -- I do have  
> ftp access though)
> 
> Does anyone have some cheap advice on mixing email and org-mode?

I am afraid my results are mostly negative.  For reasons like yours, I
use IMAP, and keep my myriad folders on the server.  I have settled on
thunderbird as the best client for my purposes.

Some alternatives I considered:  I could never get my head around gnus
as a client --- I guess for me, reading email is fundamentally UNlike
reading news.  VM does not have a fully functional IMAP client, so I
reluctantly gave it up two or so years ago.  mutt seems too primitive,
and why would I want to learn another extension language?  Perhaps if I
could have programmed it in some language with which I was familiar...

Note that thunderbird provides offline function of the sort you want ---
just click "work offline."

Alas, I have not been able to make thunderbird provide me with links
into emails so that I could click on an email link in org and jump
thunderbird to that point.  Perhaps some serious examination of the
javascript api into thunderbird could provide an extension that would do
this.

For now, I have been saving emails and putting them in as attachments.
Not fully satisfactory.

Robert