[Dovecot] Sorting messages by date

[Curtis Maloney]

Stephen Allen wrote:
> I've recovered a load of messages from a different mail server without 
> it's index file (it was corrupted).  I now have thousands of messages 
> which display in Outlook Express (yes, you may puke at this), all as 
> today's date. However when I read them in Pine, the date of each message 
> is displayed correctly, but they're in no particular order whatsoever.
> 
> There are several questions here, some of which aren't suitable for this 
> list, but for completeness...

I'm assuming you're using Maildir storage?  I believe each message, effectively, 
has two dates anyway.  One is when it was received, and one is when it was sent. 
  So, the date in the headers is the sent date, and (in Maildir) it's fairly 
safe to use the ctime of the file as the delivery date.

> 2.
> Can I fake Dovecot into thinking the messages arrived on a different 
> date by including something in the message headers, or changing the 
> date/time stamp of each file (but I don't know how to do this)?

'touch'... I'm sure a few minutes effort could produce a script to read the date 
from each message file, and 'touch' it.

> 3.
> Pine correctly picks out a date from the message (although it doesn't 
> sort by this order), and Outlook Express just displays everything as the 
> date which it (or Dovecot) first saw the message.  Does Outlook rely on 
> Dovecot's sorting/date information or does it do it's own?

Certainly sounds like it does.  See if OutLoo lets you look at the Sent Date, or 
  similar.

--
Curtis Maloney
cmaloney at cardgate.net