how can i save IMAP indexed mail via username?

[Gary Kline]

About two months ago my mail system fell apart and a thoughtful network fellow 
helped me re-organize things.  Everything, including using a small server as 
a firewall.   We set up three services on another box, that included using 
IMAP (with sendmail).   IMAP indexes things on my mailserver logically, by an 
integer scheme.  When I look for an old file I have to scp to the server and 
grep through the entire list before I find what I'm looking for.  Previously, 
I  [[ usually ]] remembered the sender's name so that here, in ~/Mail, I 
could easily view the file with vi + a few keystrokes.

Soooo, is there a way to make symlinks or copies of all  of my *saved* mail--
wherever?   In other words, if the message is in a file called
144567912456777878.556778990-67812989900 sent by user jqs, I would be able to 
view that message by just typing

% vi jqs. 

thanks,

gary
  
-- 
Gary Kline  kline at thought.org   www.thought.org  Public Service Unix
    http://jottings.thought.org   http://transfinite.thought.org