# I'm finally doing it: migrating from PINE **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 13, 2013, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805 "2013-09-13T23:13:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/1 "2013-09-13T23:13:27Z")
Some of you will know what the hell I’m talking about. I’ve got tens of thousands of emails going back to 1994 and spread across dozens of local mbox-format folders. I access my inbox through IMAP. I access all of this through PINE. The time has come to rip off this band-aid and migrate to something else. That something else is gmail. Gmail has keyboard shortcuts. It would be a non-starter otherwise, as any PINE user will understand. If there’s something essential I need to do that I can’t do mouselessly, I will be disappointed, but so far it looks like that won’t be the case. I can keep my external email address on my emails (myname@myusualdomain), which was another requirement. Importing two decades of email history has been a chore and has taken all day, but I’m almost done. (Well, my old sent-mail will still be uploading for another several hours.) The nested labels in gmail makes this all pretty nice: all my old folders are just labels nested under one “old folders” label which I can leave un-expanded. I make this move with mixed feelings, but it’s been overdue for some time. After looking through the gmail documentation, I’m pretty excited about getting back up to, and well beyond, the efficiency I had with PINE. (Don’t even ask how I handled attachments in PINE. Hackkkkkkkkky.) ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/2 "2013-09-13T23:30:46Z")
> [@Pasta](#): > > The time has come to rip off this band-aid and migrate to something else. Wow. You’re quite the bleeding edge technical adopter eh? PINE? Really? What are you going to do with all the messages you had prior to that - the ones that are inscribed on the stone tablets? Congratulations on your move at any rate! ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/3 "2013-09-13T23:36:22Z")
> [@Pasta](#): > > Some of you will know what the hell I’m talking about. > > I’ve got tens of thousands of emails going back to 1994 and spread across dozens of local mbox-format folders. I access my inbox through IMAP. I access all of this through PINE. > > The time has come to rip off this band-aid and migrate to something else. > > That something else is gmail. Gmail has keyboard shortcuts. It would be a non-starter otherwise, as any PINE user will understand. If there’s something essential I need to do that I can’t do mouselessly, I will be disappointed, but so far it looks like that won’t be the case. I can keep my external email address on my emails (myname@myusualdomain), which was another requirement. Importing two decades of email history has been a chore and has taken all day, but I’m almost done. (Well, my old sent-mail will still be uploading for another several hours.) The nested labels in gmail makes this all pretty nice: all my old folders are just labels nested under one “old folders” label which I can leave un-expanded. > > I make this move with mixed feelings, but it’s been overdue for some time. After looking through the gmail documentation, I’m pretty excited about getting back up to, and well beyond, the efficiency I had with PINE. (Don’t even ask how I handled attachments in PINE. Hackkkkkkkkky.) Well, I don’t know what to say… Leaving perfection for gmail. Nested folders doesn’t seem like sufficient compensation. Of course there are still real programmers out there that are keeping the PINE flame burning (I am not one of them, but I know a couple). I do understand why you moved. But sent mail back to 1994? That seems a bit, obsessive. 🙂 Just don’t slip up and start sending html in emails. That is just tacky… ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/4 "2013-09-14T00:06:21Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Wow. You’re quite the bleeding edge technical adopter eh? I know, I know. Hold me back, I dare you!! (The juxtaposition in the migration was that I’ve got several iDevices that I needed to configure to expose my desired email address.) > [@rbroome](#): > > Just don’t slip up and start sending html in emails. That is just tacky… Ha! First setting I changed: “Plain text only”. The 1994 wayback machine I’ve kept up is primarily one of nostalgia. A few months ago, when the migration writing was on the wall, I wrote a little script to graph my rate of emails, versus time, to different people in my life. It was a fascinating plot, with various life changes appearing through my communications (friends, significant others, family members…coming into and going out of my daily routine over the years). ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/5 "2013-09-14T00:16:02Z")
Ah I migrated to alpine a while back. An improvement on pine, although similar. I can use zimbra (a web reader), but I just don’t like it as well. With photos and such, I do use zimbra. Ordinary attachments I save and download. I doubt I will change. A friend of mine still uses something called mail. He can do nothing with attachments. I have even put entire pdf files into the body of an email and he deals with them. Graphics or anything really complicated I send to his wife. Now that is a real Luddite. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/6 "2013-09-14T00:25:03Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Wow. You’re quite the bleeding edge technical adopter eh? > > PINE? Really? > > What are you going to do with all the messages you had prior to that - the ones that are inscribed on the stone tablets? Pine is actually pretty much perfect as an e-mail client. Although we’ve been persuaded by years of saturation by Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla, et cetera that what we need in an e-mail view is something capable of handling dynamic HTML, dancing GIFs, whistling audio, autospawning popup windows, nested folders, and annoying sounds to indicate when you have received new mail. The reality is that for the vast majority of actual communications, all you need is plain text and MIME extensions, which Pine and Mutt do very well, and they work from purely keyboard input without concern for the layout of graphical interface elements. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/7 "2013-09-14T00:52:05Z")
Holy shit. I was using Pine back in '93/'94 and got the feeling it was really uncool. You are dedicated for holding out that long. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/8 "2013-09-14T01:06:18Z")
Next up: replacing Lynx. Also have to start thinking about retiring your Gopher server. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/9 "2013-09-14T01:44:19Z")
And upgrading your computer from CP/M. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/10 "2013-09-14T02:12:43Z")
Did gmail accept all your emails that were addressed in bang-path format? ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/11 "2013-09-14T02:15:04Z")
I’m really impressed, that is dedication. You rock on with your bad self. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/12 "2013-09-14T02:27:58Z")
And I play Larn on my Mac console through [Cathode](http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/13 "2013-09-14T02:32:34Z")
Seriously, Lynx is a good thing to have on one’s computer if one is a web developer. Apparently a lot of screen readers use Lynx as a text-based browser. Checking that the text and links of a website are coherent, readable, and usable in text-only mode is a very good thing. Not to mention being legally required in some circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/14 "2013-09-14T03:11:18Z")
Well, it’s not Elm… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/15 "2013-09-14T03:18:22Z")
I’m definitely not the last hold-out in my line of work, but it’s a dying breed. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Pine is actually pretty much perfect as an e-mail client. “Perfect” is why I used it for so long. “Pretty much” is why I finally bit the bullet. Handling attachments was a big thorn. Handling garbled hyperlinks was another. (Making everyone stop sending such encoded strings seemed a less pragmatic solution.) Email address “auto-suggestions” will be a big time saver for me: I often need to compose an email to a random few people that have no reason to be in my PINE address book but nonetheless have been in my email history at some point. Having to look up such email addresses when I’m just trying to fire off an email in under 15 seconds is sort of a bummer. I also see the “labels” approach as superior to “folders”. I’ve often not been 100% sure which folder I’ve stashed a message in, and gmail’s paradigm eliminates that issue while keeping the organizational benefits of folders. The “browse messages while composing” thing is nice. And a few others… I think I’ll be a quick convert, but only because of the attention to detail Google has put into the interface. If I had to use some generic, platform-dependent IMAP client or whatever, I don’t think I would have convinced myself to switch. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/16 "2013-09-14T04:40:06Z")
> [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](#): > > Well, it’s not Elm… 🙂 I’ll finally be able to retire elm on my next server upgrade, because my last elm user died since the last major OS upgrade. I used mh for about 15 years, and it was nearly perfect for me, but now I access email from too many devices to get by without a good imap backend. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/17 "2013-09-14T13:56:16Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > I’ll finally be able to retire elm on my next server upgrade, because my last elm user died since the last major OS upgrade. > > I used mh for about 15 years, and it was nearly perfect for me, but now I access email from too many devices to get by without a good imap backend. For the record, I was an elm user back in my early Unix days. My comment was about the name Pine, which many people say means “[Pine Is Not Elm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_%28mail_reader%29#Etymology)”. ---
**Author:** ![smee\_goan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@smee\_goan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smee_goan)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/18 "2013-09-14T15:35:54Z")
Wait until Gmail screws you royal they’ll say something about, > [@](#): > > suspicious activity on your email account, then just put a gun to your head. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/19 "2013-09-14T17:42:00Z")
Gmail is not a program. Gmail is a free ISP that (like most ISPs nowadays) also happens to provide web mail. You could have Gmail and continue to use PINE as your email program. You could have Gmail and use Eudora, Thunderbird, Outlook, etc as your email program. ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-finally-doing-it-migrating-from-pine/668805/20 "2013-09-14T18:23:18Z")
A few months back, a friend of mine was sitting with me at my computer because I needed to send him a couple of reminders. ME: “Here, I’ll send you an email with the info.” _brings up minimized PuTTY window with PINE active_ HIM: _tells me a few things to type into the email_ ME: “Okay, sent.” HIM: “Thanks!..” _pause_ “By the way…” _contemplative pause_ “What the hell \*was \*that!?”