craschworks

I had a mailbox full of 128,000+ automated error messages from a test machine I was running. I couldn't even delete them because Thunderbird would time out before it finished opening the mailbox. So I tried to set up Pine to read and delete the messages.

This page proved useful for general configuration:

http://www.decf.berkeley.edu/help/mail/pine-imapssl.html

However, I still had a devil of a time getting Pine to display all of the subdirectories in my INBOX folder. Finally, I found this page, which had an example that worked for me:

user-domain=foofoo.org
smtp-server=192.168.1.25
inbox-path={192.168.1.25/user=foofoo}INBOX
folder-collections=”INBOX Folders” {192.168.1.25/user=foofoo}inbox/[],
“Mailbox Folders” {192.168.1.25/user=foofoo}[]
default-fcc=”{192.168.1.25/user=foofoo}Sent Items”
postponed-folder={192.168.1.25/user=foofoo}Drafts
customized-hdrs=From: Foo Foo
ldap-servers=192.168.1.100 “/base=/impl=1/rhs=0/ref=0/nosub=0/type=
/srch=contains/time=/size=/cust=/nick=/matr=/catr=/satr=/gatr=”
rsh-open-timeout=0

* Turn on the Aggregate command set.

* From the Main menu, type S (setup) then C (config).
* Scroll down the list to the section entitled Advanced Command Preferences.
* Select enable-aggregate-command set and press Enter to “check” the option.
* Type E (exit setup), then Y (yes to save/commit changes).

* Select the messages you want to delete.

* Open the folder that contains the messages to be archived.
* Type ; (semi-colon). The SELECT Criteria prompt displays at the bottom of the screen.
* Choose the selection criteria you want (options include all, by message number, status, date or text).
* Follow the instructions displayed at the bottom of the screen for the selection criteria you selected.

Type “D” (no quotes) to [D]elete.

If there are a lot of messages, it may take a while to select them.

http://www.cmu.edu/computing/documentation/pine/pine.html