Mail Moving

I needed a Linux one-liner to pull off a mail move of particular mail from one user to another

cp -p `grep -lr "media" /home/jones/Maildir` /home/jones/holding

In more generic terms, it looks like this:

cp -p `grep -lr "[matching term]" [directory to search]` [destination directory]

the -p option on the copy preserves attributes (so you omit some by date).

I copied these files into a holding directory in Jones' directory so that I could do more work on the files. Then, I moved the finished list to Smith's directory.

mv * /home/smith/Maildir/new

They arrived with the wrong ownership. So, I chowned them to fit the required ownership-- that of the mail group.user intent on downloading the messages

chown smith.smith *

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