MUA Filters vs Procmail filters[was] RE: Mailing list procmail recipe

[William Hooper]

Ow Mun Heng said:
>
> After going through this thread. I just need to ask another stupid
> question. What's the major benefit (newb) for one to be using
> procmail to filter emails (besides filtering *.exe *.pif etc viruses)
> versus that which is offered by MUAs such as Evolution.
> (i'm on evolution)
>
> Both serves the same purpose right? I know IMAP is a better (from what I
> hear. Pls don't make this an argument) vs Mbox. but mbox format is better
> for archiving/writing to CDR.

I'm pretty sure you mean Maildir vs Mbox.  IMAP is a protocol, not a
storage format.

> Since I'm using Mbox format, I might need to re-word the above recipe to
> put into my ~/home/evolution/local/subfolders/Linux/subfolders/Fedora
> right?
>
> But I digress. What's the benefit of using procmail vs MUA filters???

As someone else pointed out, it frees you to use multiple clients with the
same filters.  For example you could use Evolution at home, mutt via SSH
at work, and SquirrelMail via the web at the library.  Have them all
pointing to the same IMAP server with procmail filters and you are all
set.

I believe it would also be more efficient when using IMAP because the
mails get moved on the server instead of the client having to move them,
but it might not be that big of a difference.

-- 
William Hooper