Note: I love Google. And I think Gmail rocks; I actually do use it for some mailing lists and unimportant stuff. But I’m wary of putting all my eggs in one basket (Google), and I’m VERY wary of the issues WRT 4th Amendment searches and privacy when one’s email isn’t really in one’s own possession. So I run my own IMAP mail server, in my own little house. They can come with their own little search warrants and serve ME, thank you very much.

But the downfall to that is search. You get USED to the power of the Google; archiving and tagging rather than saving to folders, and powerful search functionality at your fingertips. I knew there must be some tools for me to use, but I kept neglecting to do the *irony* search needed. But ah…thanks, muttwiki (I use mutt as my MUA) for links to mairix!

Da bomb. mairix has full-text search on headers and body, powerful operators, and setup properly, puts the results in a IMAP folder populated on the fly. Perfection!! I kick off a db update nightly (I could do it on demand if I wanted…but it’s just not THAT necessary), and I’ve already used it several times with great results. It integrates beautifully with mutt, too. Totally, totally recommended if you go the roll-your-own mail server route.