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Here is my system of not wasting too much time on e-mail: I only have one client application set up to access my various accounts - Zimbra Desktop, which I don't have any entries for in the OS menu, and I don't know any passwords myself as they are randomly generated and stored in KeyPassX.

Every day a cronjob starts up the client at 4pm, which starts minimized (thank you, KDE), proceeds to fetch new mail, apply various filters (e.g. CCs marked read and archived), and maximizes the window 2 minutes later.

Half an hour later another cronjob does a 'killall' on it - that way if I wasn't at my desk at 4, I wouldn't have to come back to be greeted by unanswered e-mails.

And, as the article says, there is always a mobile phone for anything truly urgent.



That is about the craziest idea for handling mail I've heard in a while. I'm not sure if I like it or hate it -- it certainly is a bit sad that (presumably) handling of mail is so slow you need to give the client 2 minutes to sort things out.

What happens if you're writing a reply at 16:32? Do you start over the next day?


I am guessing that if there is already a Zimbra Desktop process, the 16:30 job has no effect.

And I am guessing that if the process's main window is already maximized, the 16:32 job has no effect.


I am impressed with your design!

If I knew how to set up the same sequence of scheduled jobs around Mail.app on OS X, I would.




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