Importing Emails from Mac Mail

DEVONthink Tips
1

I’m getting in a pickle with importing emails from Mail and wonder if someone could put me straight. I’ve obviously done it correctly previously but can’t repeat or remember how I achieved nirvana!

What I’m looking for is to import emails on a weekly or monthly basis from one of my accounts in Mail into an existing database in DEVONthink Pro Office and to have each imported email show the date that it was received or sent in Mail rather than the date that they were transferred or imported into DTPO.

I also want the system to automatically disregard any emails that have already been imported/transferred - I understand that DTPO will do that if the Hide box in the import screen for Imported is ticked.
Q 1 Is this correct?
Q 2 Does this only apply when using File>Import within DTPO or is it possible to make it also apply if I drag and drop using either of the methods referred to in the following paragraph?

Q 3 Does it make any difference whether the emails are imported using the DTPO File>Import route or by highlighting them and dragging them into the database, either through the DT box on the edge of my screen or by directly dragging and dropping into the database in DTPO?

On this occasion, initially I transferred the emails I wanted by highlighting them in the relevant mailbox in Mail and then dragging them into the DT box at the side of the screen but when I looked at them they all had the date of transfer rather than the date of the email so I deleted them all and then cleared the trash box, reasoning that in these circs the system would not recognise them as having previously been imported because they weren’t there

I have just tried to import using DTPO and everything from October onwards is missing, presumably because somehow the system recognises that they have previously been imported/transferred even though they are not there.
Q 4 Does this mean that it’s irrevocable and I can’t turn the clock back?
Q 5 Does this option only apply to the whole mailbox so it’s not possible to import a selection?

Can some kind person tell me where I am going wrong please? As I said at the beginning I’ve done it properly before but can’t remember how! I really don’t want to go through thousands of emails individually and in any event I want them dated correctly so that they can be filed in correct date order in each Group

2

Drag and drop will produce duplicate files as it is only a file passing through the clipboard. The Import function uses a Mail.app plugin so it can handle the dates and data in a more precise fashion.

They are most likely in your unemptied Trash. (I feel a blog post coming on… :smiley: )If the emails were truly not in your database, including the Trash, they would be present in the Import Email dialog. You could turn on Preferences > Email > Messages: Previously imported will become replicants but the possibility of ending up with unwanted files to clean up is much higher.

3

Thanks. For the reason you gave I didn’t want to click on the item in Preferences. If I had done, with the result that all previously imported files became replicants, is it possible easily to mark all replicants and delete them en masse?

There were 738 items I found in Smart Groups Recently Added, which had been imported from the email account in question, and yesterday I transferred them initially to the Inbox for my database and then laboriously to the appropriate groups in that database

This morning, as a test, I used File>Import>Emails in DTPO to import the emails from the relevant account to see if any remained. I was surprised to learn that there were still 226 out of a total shown of 1760, so I clicked the Import button. Much to my surprise the Smart Groups Recently Added Group showed 823! How can this be? I expected to find the items in the general Inbox but that was empty. I can tell from my recent painful memories that a lot of the items have already been imported so the program should have excluded them

What’s happening, please?