Keep original path after conversion of email to RTF

DEVONthink
1

I’m looking to automate the filing a a limited number of specific email messages in DevonThink (the important ones I want to reference and think about). This is then followed by the ingestion of the email messages in Tinderbox for further analyses. The steps I’m following are roughly as follows:

  1. Drag and Drop email message from my application (Lotus Notes) into DevonThink. This creates an new file with Kind set to Email Message and attributes such as Path linking back to the original email within my email client and Created the date of the email etc…

  2. Convert the message from the Email format to RTF

  3. Move the message to a special folder which is “watched” by Tinderbox

It’s all possible in DT using Rules. The main challenge I have the the Path attribute which changes during the conversion from Email to RTF (see example below the Path attribute that I would like to keep). The advantage of the Path with Kind = Email is that I can always go back to the original email within the email client.
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The conversion the new Path only references the RTF itself. Clicking on it does not lead me back to the original email.

image

Is there a way of maintaining the original path to the email within a rule or conversion process ?

2

No, you cannot maintain the Path when converting files. The Path is the location of the file in the filesystem, so it must point to the path of the selected file.
Why are you converting it to rich text?

3

In order to let Tinderbox import the RTF via a watched folder (instead of the email source).

@MacDav, to me it seems you’re mixing up path and URL.

The path just shows where the file (the imported mail or the resulting RTF) are located in the macOS file system. This would never let you open the original mail in your mail app.

The URL could be used to take you back to the original mail in your mail app. (see Correct url of eml records)

4

You hit the nail on the head @pete31. Clicking on the Path of the email file in DT launched the email client and retrieved the email because of the extension (or the handling of kind = email files), not the properties of the path itself. The URL will do fine and can be included in the rules based on the AppleScript you referenced.