My dearly beloved wife --my poor wife-- "lost" an important branch of her folder hierarchy by trying to copy a large branch under another tray.  The files are still in her mail folder, and some can be located with a search, opened and moved, while others aren't showing their heads.

So I poked around to figure out how to help her. Someone mentioned editing the hierarchy.pm file.  I'd like to be able to do that, but I have only educated guesses about how to do that.  IS THERE ANY technical documentation, that explains, for example,

• the syntax of the lines (which come in a few different patterns),
• what the pair of digits at the beginning of lines mean
• the structure of the file as a whole (e.g., any ordering constraints there might be
• and what is the good and the bad (danger!!) of directly editing this file 
• DOCUMENTATION on the  the structure of entries, what can be omitted?

Perhaps this should be another message thread? ...say, "hierarchy.pm?

--David

I have lost the hierarchy file a few times already - effectively loosing a fairly intricate folder structure.I don't know why it happens, but I've had to restore, at times manually, my hierarchy 6 or 7 times.

Instead of having to look for my manual backups on random external harddrives, it would be great if that single file could create a running "last working session" backup file, that can easily be recreated.

Given that the file is so small, it wouldn't affect the programme's overall bulkiness much, but could save much irritation!

Yes, losing the email folder hierarchy structure requires hours and hours of work to re-create.

Without a comprehensive understanding of the pmail file structure, I feared that a dated backup file might confound email archive, with possible loss of individual messages.  So, I have always re-created the file tray hierarchy anew;  creating filing trays and moving folders manually.  Because the incremental manual process takes so long, re-creation is often a work-in-process when the hierarchy structure crashes anew.  So ...   re-creation of lost folder hierarchy becomes a never ending task, to the detriment of pmail utility.

Maybe restoring an old copy of the hierarchy file would be better than my never-ending re-creation of lost structure--or, maybe I have not read the clear directions for a simpler, more effective solution.  Yet, for my present understanding, loss of the hierarchy structure is terrible.  My hope is that v5, when it may arrive, is more robust.