Webmail vs client question

Linux for blind general discussion blinux-list at redhat.com
Sun Dec 19 01:30:50 UTC 2021


Tim here.  I don't know which file-system you're running, but if your
home directory is on ZFS, you can enable transparent compression.  I
have my mail/cache directory as a specific ZFS dataset and get
roughly 60% compression out of my mostly-plain-text mail-cache files:

  $ zfs get -H -ovalue compressratio zpool/usr/home/tim/Mail
  1.31x

I believe that works out to around 75% compression because mail
(whether mbox or maildir or MH) usually has a lot of easy-to-compress
data in it.

Alternatively, you might be able to tell your MUA (whether Claws or
Thunderbird or Seamonkey or mutt/neomutt) to interact directly with
files on the server (usually via IMAP; it's more annoying to do via
POP3 because it only has the idea of a mailbox, not a hierarchy of
folders).

Most still cache things locally so you'll have some local disk-space
consumption, but most should give you controls over how large that
grows (or you can enforce it by putting your mail-cache directory on
its own mount-point and giving it a limited size/quota)

-tim

On December 18, 2021, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
> So this came to mind earlier, and I'm wondering if I can do
> anything about it, and it was prompted by an idea I had to save
> disk space.
> 
> 
> I've read up on the difference with POP3 vs IMAP, and I like how 
> Seamonkey/Thunderbird/Claws/etc handle mail in a much easier to
> read format than webmail interfaces.
> 
> But I'm wondering if there's a middle ground, if I can have a
> client that lets me access my mail, but doesn't clutter up my disk?
> I was told both POP3 and IMAP eat up disk space on a computer after
> all, and I'm both not sure how true that is, and wondering if I can
> do anything to mitigate that?
> 
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