Entourage 2001: good system for email storage and folders:
PS Macintosh
system--so that I can access past messages by contact name, can do a
back up and can archive.
In the past, I didn't have time to figure out the details of Ent,, so
I went to the following system:
If I want to save a message, I select Save As. (Although, to save
time and clicks, I usually reply to the original message and THEN save
the Reply with its copy of the original message as opposed to
separately saving both the original message and its reply.)
I created a file structure on my hard drive that goes something like
Hard Drive > Documents > Internet Data > 2002 Data > (then a separate
folder for each contact name).
So I am manually saving the message, naming it (adding a date format
to the front of the name), creating a folder on the Hard Drive and
saving the email in its respective folder.
A bit of work……but then I can back up this Internet Data folder……..or
manually go back into it to view past messages (that open in
SimpleText or MS Word) for a particular person.
Once I SAVE the message, THEN I almost always DELETE the message from
its respective Inbox (so that the Inbox is cleared of past messages).
I'm hoping that someone with good Ent experience will be able to guide
me into a better storage methodology.
First, let me see if I understand some things about Ent:
a. In its Identity folder, Ent stores messages that are downloaded
(IF fully downloaded—and not just the header info) whether they are
POP or IMAP. All email content (body) is stored in Messages…..and
email pointers (headers) stored in Database.
Therefore, all emails are lumped together and only viewable as
separate messages via Ent (or another email app…..if backed up in MBOX
format).
b. I see now (which I previously over-looked) that Ent links an email
to its contact.
It appears to do so automatically—makes an auto link.
1. Question - Linking:
Does Ent auto link to ALL messages: received, sent, and reply
messages??
If I send an email to multiple persons (via To or CC or BCC) is the
email auto linked to them all??
I guess that it only makes an auto link if the contact's name is
already in the Ent Address Book.
2. Question – Delete effects:
What happens when I delete a message from its Inbox?? Is there still
a copy of it in the Identities folder……and still an auto link to it
from its contact??
What happens when I later delete deleted messages??
Or delete sent messages??
Instead of deleting, should I make a folder for each contact, put it
the Folder list, and move the email to its respective folder once
dwealt with??
Paul Berkowitz
e2857278.02091...@posting.google.com, "PS Macintosh"
<psmac...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> b. I see now (which I previously over-looked) that Ent links an email
> to its contact.
> It appears to do so automatically—makes an auto link.
>
> 1. Question - Linking:
> Does Ent auto link to ALL messages: received, sent, and reply
> messages??
> If I send an email to multiple persons (via To or CC or BCC) is the
> email auto linked to them all??
> I guess that it only makes an auto link if the contact's name is
> already in the Ent Address Book.
It's a preference. You can turn it on or off.
General preferences / Address Book/ Link messages I receive to sender
and / Link messages I send to sender
Naturally only applies to Address Book contacts.
>
> 2. Question – Delete effects:
> What happens when I delete a message from its Inbox?? Is there still
> a copy of it in the Identities folder……and still an auto link to it
> from its contact??
When you delete a message, it is moved to the Deleted Items folder. It's
still linked to the contact. When you Empty Deleted Items folder (or quit,
for IMAP messages), it is expunged from the database. (What that actually
means is that it is no longer indexed in the database and will soon be
overwritten by new data. It is impossible to trace within Entourage, but
some sort of computer scavenging agent could still find bits of it mixed up
with garbage, but also all encoded. It's not linked to anything whatsoever
and simply doesn't exist as far as Entourage, the program, is concerned.
Unfindable. To expunge it completely from your hard drive, do a Typical
Rebuild which rewrites to disk, leaving deleted stuff overwritten OUTSIDE
the database.)
> What happens when I later delete deleted messages??
That's what I just answered. (Could you please stop doubling up your
question marks????)
> Or delete sent messages??
Same as what happens to received messages.
>
> Instead of deleting, should I make a folder for each contact, put it
> the Folder list, and move the email to its respective folder once
> dwealt with??
Why? Do you want to delete it or do you want to keep it?
--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.
PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.
PS Macintosh
> >
> > Instead of deleting, should I make a folder for each contact, put it
> > the Folder list, and move the email to its respective folder once
> > dwealt with??
>
> Why? Do you want to delete it or do you want to keep it?
>
>
> --
> Paul Berkowitz
> MVP Entourage
I want to save most emails as records.
Let's say that, in a year, I have correspondence with 100 different
people which correspondence includes emails (both received and sent)
and also computer-generated documents (say MS Word docs) both sent and
received.
I want to save (keep a record) of all of this correspondence (emails &
docs), but don't want to save any junk mail (and perhaps don't want to
save some of the lesser correspondence).
I want to be able to go back and look at records that are 10 years
old. And I want to backup the records.
Question: What's the best system for handling the above? How are
people structuring their Folder List?
Now, I think that I should have created a folder called "Save" in the
Folder List.
Then "moved" wanted emails (both received and sent) into the Save
folder.
(It looks like emails can be moved by simply dragging and dropping
them into different folders….great!)
Then put the remainder of emails into the Deleted Items folder.
Question: Why do people mark junk as "read" with their junk filters?
Is it so that the emails don't show up in certain "views"??
If the Save folder gets too large over the course of years, I guess I
could select all messages from a certain earlier year (say 1999) and
drag them into a folder called "1999 Emails" on the desktop for
backing up.
If I later had to see an email from 1999, I could drag them back into
Entourage. Right?
Question: Would the links be maintained after such dragging??
Probably not, but I guess it wouldn't matter because the search box
would be able to locate a particular email.
Question: In a contact's More Links window, I only see a Modified Date
column. Is there any way to show a Created Date column and to sort
the list on Created Date?
Question:In a contact's Short-List Links window, I see command-0,
command-1, and command-2 after various emails—like keystroke
shortcuts. What do those mean? What purpose/function? Relates to
year of creation date…or what?
Question: Will Entourage become too bloated and too slowed down as a
result of maintaining 5 years of emails in it? Or is it not really an
issue?
Mickey Stevens
e2857278.02092...@posting.google.com, "PS Macintosh"
<psmac...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Paul Berkowitz <berk...@silcom.com> wrote in message
> news:<B9AB4282.1E8DD%berk...@silcom.com>...
>>>
>>> Instead of deleting, should I make a folder for each contact, put it
>>> the Folder list, and move the email to its respective folder once
>>> dwealt with??
>>
>> Why? Do you want to delete it or do you want to keep it?
>>
>>
>> --
>> Paul Berkowitz
>> MVP Entourage
>
> I want to save most emails as records.
>
> Let's say that, in a year, I have correspondence with 100 different
> people which correspondence includes emails (both received and sent)
> and also computer-generated documents (say MS Word docs) both sent and
> received.
> I want to save (keep a record) of all of this correspondence (emails &
> docs), but don't want to save any junk mail (and perhaps don't want to
> save some of the lesser correspondence).
> I want to be able to go back and look at records that are 10 years
> old. And I want to backup the records.
Then it's not a good idea to keep those messages in the Deleted Items
folder. That's intended as a milestone toward total deletion.
>
> Question: What's the best system for handling the above? How are
> people structuring their Folder List?
>
> Now, I think that I should have created a folder called "Save" in the
> Folder List.
> Then "moved" wanted emails (both received and sent) into the Save
> folder.
> (It looks like emails can be moved by simply dragging and dropping
> them into different folders….great!)
You could then create subfolders within the "Save" folder for different
purposes.
> Then put the remainder of emails into the Deleted Items folder.
>
> Question: Why do people mark junk as "read" with their junk filters?
> Is it so that the emails don't show up in certain "views"??
Yes. Also, unread messages grab your attention as something that needs to
be read - if it's marked as read, it won't grab your attention as being an
unread message which you might actually want to read.
>
> If the Save folder gets too large over the course of years, I guess I
> could select all messages from a certain earlier year (say 1999) and
> drag them into a folder called "1999 Emails" on the desktop for
> backing up.
> If I later had to see an email from 1999, I could drag them back into
> Entourage. Right?
>
Right.
> Question: Would the links be maintained after such dragging??
> Probably not, but I guess it wouldn't matter because the search box
> would be able to locate a particular email.
I don't know.
>
> Question: In a contact's More Links window, I only see a Modified Date
> column. Is there any way to show a Created Date column and to sort
> the list on Created Date?
I believe it only allows Date Modified.
>
> Question:In a contact's Short-List Links window, I see command-0,
> command-1, and command-2 after various emails—like keystroke
> shortcuts. What do those mean? What purpose/function? Relates to
> year of creation date…or what?
Weird - I don't know about that one at all.
>
> Question: Will Entourage become too bloated and too slowed down as a
> result of maintaining 5 years of emails in it? Or is it not really an
> issue?
If you rebuild the database when you start to see problems, it shouldn't be
a problem. Just make sure you start archiving stuff when you approach the 2
GB limit. (Actually, another solution would be to create a new identity for
old stuff - drag it from the current identity to the desktop, then into the
archive identity).
--
Please post replies to this message within the thread instead of e-mailing
them to me. Thanks!
Paul Berkowitz
eMessage Archiver will archive mail just as you you're asking for. You can
choose which folder to archive, which date period (ie. don't archive recent
mal yet), etc. It stores them all in a FileMaker pro database with
super-fast searching, and you can even reply to archived messages from
there. If you don't have FMP, you get a runtime version with eMA. You can
(should) choose to delete originals when you archive so that way you keep
Entourage slim and fast. you can get eMA here:
<http://homepage.mac.com/ThinkAgain/Mac>
--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.
PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.
Mike
Quarterly, I drag each correspondent folder out of my Entourage (was
2001, now OS X, I don't think there is a meaningful difference for
these purposes) and onto the desktop, then I switch identities to an
archiving identity (e.g.: "2002 email") and drag the folders into that
identity (and then combine like correspondents and delete duplciate
folders). Then if I need to access or search old email, I can just
switch identities and look for it in the same way I would if it was in
my current Entourage database.
In the past, I used a Filemaker system (and have years prior to 2001
in that format). Are there advantages to the system described below
over my system?
Mike
Paul Berkowitz <berk...@silcom.com> wrote in message news:<B9B34844.1F420%berk...@silcom.com>...
PS Macintosh
At this point, it would be very instructional if various people would
describe how they have structured their Folder List.
What folders have you added to Entourage's default folders and--if
it's not self-explanatory--why?
Entourage's default folders are as follows:
(at least this is how MY folders look.... I haven't changed or altered
the original default categories that appeared)
Inbox
Outbox
Sent Items
Drafts
Deleted Items
Address Book
Calendar
Tasks
Notes
Custom Views (11):
Contacts in the Family Category
Contacts in the Friends Category
Contacts in the Personal Category
Contacts in the Work Category
Flagged Messages
Items in the Personal Category
Items in the Work Category
Items Received or Due Today
Messages Received Since Launch
Messages Received Today
Unread Messages
Then my Email Account Folders look something like this:
Acco...@earthlink.net
Acco...@hotmail.com
Inbox
Deleted Items
Junk Mail
MSN Announcements
Sent Items
Acco...@hotmail.com
Inbox
Deleted Items
Junk Mail
MSN Announcements
Sent Items
Acco...@hotmail.com
Inbox
Deleted Items
Junk Mail
MSN Announcements
Sent Items
Acco...@mac.com
Inbox
Acco...@mac.com
Inbox
Acco...@mac.com
Acco...@mac.com
(I guess the mac.com accounts without Inboxes must be setup as POP
accounts, versus IMAP accounts.......or the other way around??)
It's unfortunate that Entourage doesn't come with a Tutorial (and a
downloadable startup package of extra ingredients) that suggests to
people how they should set up their email system:
that suggests folders to add to the Folder List,
that suggest a system for archiving info,
that gives a package of popular scripts to add to scripts,
that gives a list of addresses to add to the Blocked List,
that gives commonly used code to add to the Junk Mail Filter and Mail
List Manager to handle spam.
One place and one time to get most novices off of the ground, loaded
up with the right ingredients into Entourage, and introduced to these
concepts and areas of email management.
-PSMacintosh