How to fix icarus or tigger Inbox quota problems with pine

This page explains how to use pine on icarus or tigger to fix email Inbox quota problems on icarus or tigger.

For more information on using pine, see Pine Email for UNIX. If you'd like to learn how to use pine to do email on other machines, such as mailserv, see How to fix mailserv quota problems with pine.

Note on mail folders and mailboxes: Some email programs and tools talk about "mail folders" and others talk about "email mailboxes" -- they are exactly the same thing. We use "mail folders" in this Web page because that's what pine calls them.

If you only use pine, then all your email is always kept on the server, and you only have two choices of how to fix Inbox quota problems on icarus or tigger -- you either Delete messages or you Save messages to other folders on the server.

There is a problem, however -- you cannot use pine to download either attachments or email messages to your personal computer.

• If you have email with attachments that you want to keep or to use on your personal computer, your best bet is to download them to your personal computer using WebMail. WebMail is quite good at downloading attachments and it's simple to use. See How to fix tigger or icarus Inbox quota problems using WebMail.

 
• If you'd like to download copies of your IMAP mailboxes to your personal computer, including your Inbox, use the ACCC's email mailbox download and delete Web tool to download and delete entire mailboxes from the server; see Downloading or Deleting Entire Mailboxes with the ACCC Email Tools Diagnostics Page.

1. Check out the list of your the 10 largest email messages in your inbox using the Email Diagnostics Quota Tool Web page before you get started. For more information, see Using the ACCC Email Diagnostics Tool to Check Quotas, Download, and Delete.
2. Open pine and open your Inbox:
   1. Enter the command: pine
   2. Press Enter to open your Folder List.
   3. Press Enter again to open your INBOX.
3. Sort the messages by size if you wish: type $ (the dollar sign; for SortIndex), type z (Size), type $ again, then type r (Reverse).
4. Go to the top of the Message Index: type j (Jump), type 1 (the first message), then press Enter.
5. Use the Up and Down arrow keys to highlight a message that you want to save or delete. If you wish, you can press Enter to open the message.
6. To mark a message for deletion, type d (Delete); it will be marked for deletion in the Message Index with a "D" in the first column.
7. To save a message into another folder and mark it for deletion from the Inbox,
   • Type s (Save), then:
     • Press Enter to accept the suggested saved-messages folder.
     • Or type the name of another folder and press Enter.
     • Or type Ctrl-t to go to your Folder List, use the Up and Down arrow keys to highlight the name of the folder you want to save the message in, press Enter, then press Enter again to accept the folder name and save the message.
   Each message that you've saved into another mail folder with be marked for deletion -- with a "D" in the first column in the Message List.
   Note that space taken up by your mail folders other than your Inbox apply to your standard UNIX disk quota. Pine will allow you to go over your soft disk quota when you save messages to other mail folders; it will not allow you save a message that will make you go over your hard disk quota.
8. When you're finished saving and/or deleting messages, press the Right arrow key to go back to the Inbox Message Index if necessary.
9. Then actually delete the messages you've marked for deletion: type x (Expunge), then type y (yes).

Be sure to check your quota again after you expunge the deleted messages to make sure you're really back under your Inbox quota.

If you use pine, you have at least one folder in addition to your Inbox, assuming you've sent any email with pine -- a sent-mail folder, in which pine puts a copy of each message that you send. You might have additional folders that you've created yourself.

The space taken up by the messages in your icarus or tigger your sent-mail folder and all other mail folders other than your Inbox applies to your standard UNIX disk quotas. (Just like email Inbox quotas, are two disk quotas -- a soft quota that you can go over for a short time and a larger hard quota that you can't go beyond.) Save too many messages from your Inbox into other mail folders on icarus and tigger, and you could find yourself in trouble with your disk quotas. (The files in your personal Web pages and all other files you have on icarus or tigger also apply to your icarus or tigger UNIX disk quota, so even if you don't already have any or much email in other folders on the server, you might not have much space disk left to use to keep additional email on your account.)

How can you tell how much of your disk quota you're using? When you're using pine, you're already logged into icarus or tigger, so the easiest way to check your disk quota is with the quota command. (The Email Diagnostics Quota Tool Web page has this information, too.)

Disk quotas for user adabyron (uid 12345):
     Filesystem  blocks   quota   limit   grace   files   quota   limit   grace
   /homes/home1    1589    2048    4096              26       0       0

Open pine, press Enter to open your Folder List, use the Up and Down arrow keys to highlight the name of the folder you want to work with, then press Enter to open the Message Index of that folder. Then use other folder's Message Indexes exactly the same way as you would the Inbox, see How to remove messages from your Inbox above.