Using IMAP with pine
Most new mail readers (eg,
Netscape
and
Internet Explorer)
can now be configured to read mail remotely using a service called
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol).
This is convenient, as you can now keep your mail in a single place
and access it from many machines in different locations (eg, from home
and the office).
Some people have discovered that
pine
is a simple text-based mail program which can deal with the same sets
of files you use with the above programs.
However, it is not advisable to use
pine
while also using IMAP-based mail programs.
This is because while two IMAP-based mail programs will be able to
cooperate with locking and modifying the mail files involved, our
default configuration of
pine
uses different locking.
If you want to use
pine
while also using IMAP-based mail programs, here's how:
-
From the
MAIN MENU
page of
pine,
type
"s",
to get a choice of setup tasks at the bottom of the screen.
-
Choose
"c",
to enter the
SETUP CONFIGURATION
screen.
-
Type
"n",
until
inbox-path
line is highlighted.
-
Type
"a",
to begin modifying this line.
-
Type the name of the IMAP server in curley braced, followed by
"INBOX".
(eg,
{aramis.rutgers.edu}INBOX).
-
Type
"e"
to exit the setup and confirm the changes by typing
"y".
-
Back at the
MAIN MENU,
type
"s"
to get a list of setup tasks again.
-
This time, choose
"l"
(collectionList).
Here you will see two "collection lists,"
Mail
and
News.
-
Highlight
Mail
(it probably already is), and type
"c"
(Change).
-
Now select
Server:
and enter the server name
(cs.rutgers.edu).
-
Type
"^X"
(that's control-X)
to save the changes.
You have now configured
pine
to use IMAP to access both your incoming mail and your mail folders.
pine
should now peacefully and cooperatively coexist with other IMAP-based
mail programs.
If you'd rather just edit your
.pinerc
file, you can change the line
folder-collections=
line to
folder-collections=Mail {aramis.rutgers.edu}mail/[]
and the line
inbox-path=
to
inbox-path={aramis.rutgers.edu}INBOX
But if you don't like the
pine
user interface that much, you probably shouldn't be using
pine.
This page last updated June 25, 1999.