Deleting large number of emails from busy mailbox

[Patrick Shanahan]

* Vegard Svanberg <vegard at svanberg.no> [03-14-23 03:41]:
> * Kevin J. McCarthy <kevin at 8t8.us> [2023-03-13 21:07]:
> 
> > Do you mean the 2000 emails you want to delete, or the half-million emails
> > in the mailbox?
> 
> The 2000 I want to delete, yes. :-)
> 
> > If it's the first, it sounds as if Mutt thinks the value in $trash is not
> > the same server as the mailbox you are connected do.  Otherwise it would do
> > a UID COPY on the server side, which would be faster.
> 
> Holy moly, I just re-discovered I had a trash! Which, needless to say, is
> huge... I'd forgotten all about it.
> 
> You're right, they're not the same. Mailbox is on IMAP, trash is a local
> file.
> 
> Well, that explains it, then. 
> 
> After reading the fine manual, I don't see an immediate way to disable
> trash. Assuming I'll have to move it to IMAP then. Which is fine, just
> wondering if trash could be disabled as I don't really need it.
 
you haven't gone deep enough.

man muttrc:
   maildir_trash
       Type: boolean
       Default: no
                               
            If  set,  messages  marked as deleted will be saved with the
            maildir trashed flag instead of unlinked.  Note: this only
            applies to maildir-style mailboxes.  Setting it will have no
            effect on other mailbox types.
                                                        
and there is "mh_purge"

and 

   trash
       Type: path
       Default: “”

          If set, this variable specifies the path of the trash folder
          where the mails marked for deletion will be moved, instead of
          being irremediably purged.

          NOTE: When you delete a message in the trash folder, it is
          really deleted, so that you have a way to clean the trash.


-- 
(paka)Patrick Shanahan       Plainfield, Indiana, USA          @ptilopteri
http://en.opensuse.org    openSUSE Community Member    facebook/ptilopteri
Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo                   paka @ IRCnet oftc