DTP office email archive - initial use

Hi,

Some feedback based on my initial use of DTPO as an email archiver:

I created a new database for this test. I used the DTPO plugin from the Mail app to do the export.

The email import plugin in DTPO would not let me choose folder groups, only individual mail folders (folders that did not contain subfolders). This differs from the behavior using the plugin installed in Mail app and seemed a bit confusing (I thought I was doing something wrong).

The feedback:

*Mail import to DTPO resulted in all of my emails being flagged in Mail app. I had certain emails flagged for a variety of reasons. I had to unflag all of my emails in Mail app and lost the visual references.

*Listings of mail imported into DTPO are not viewable as in Mail (from, to, subject etc). Also, it lost all formatting, including html mails even when “download remote images in html” was checked in the prefs.

*A database with ~9700 emails was PAINFULLY slow on my IntelMac pro 2.66 w/3GB RAM. I let DTPO maintain the folder hierarchy as in mail. It was a large database, I know. I ended up deleting the database.

The resulting database wasn’t very user friendly, based on the above comments.

Suggestions? Comments?

cheers

I think you used the AppleScript import scripts and not the new commands available from within the Mail application (check the Mailbox and Message menus). That would explain all this perfectly. I think you will find the whole experience more positive if you use these (although after the next release because some users experience a bug currently, the workaround is to specify an import group for new notes).

That makes a bit more sense to me. :blush:

I’ll give it a try and report back!

cheers

Hi,

I use Apple Mail and tried to test DTPO as an email archiver too.
I created a new database and I used the File > Import > Email menu
I confirm that the dialog window doesn’t let me choose folder groups, only individual mail folders (folders that did not contain subfolders).
In fact, I see the main folders, but the ‘Import’ button stays inactive. But, when I import a child folder, DTPO recreates the hierarchy onto the database.
That way, the import process is painfull : I have to select one folder at a time, to wait for “Loading messages…” (and that be very long for a thousand messages).
Can you add a ‘Import the whole database’ option ? or the ability to import the main folders, or the to select several folders at a time

Another thing : the ‘modified date’ column display the current date. It’s correct, but it should be more helpful to display the date of the email.

Take a look at the Creation Date which is even more correct because that’s when the email was “created”.

I can say that the instructions offered provided for a much smoother import experience. Thank you.

I still do not find the database view of email archives useful however. Many of the viewable attributes unique to email (the to/from/date received/date sent etc fields) are not available. As such, it is not very user friendly, or useful to me.

I’ve tried Mailsmith and, while not pretty or with DTP’s AI, it maintains the “mail” attributes of imported emails, as the user expects.

Hi, milhouse. You can ‘emulate’ a 'From: John Smith" search by doing a Phrase search on content. Likewise with ‘Subject:’ or ‘To:’.

And the Creation Date is the date sent/received.

Presently one cannot do additional filtering in a single query with a Phrase search. That will come in a future version that I’m not going to talk about any more. :slight_smile:

For me the net effect of archiving is that I can find what I need from my very large Entourage archive much more quickly than in Entourage itself.