Moving Entourage's Spotlight metadata

[Jon Connell]

I'd like to home Entourage's Spotlight metadata on an encrypted volume,
but I would prefer not to use FileVault since it'll slow down every disk
access in my home directory (and indeed it does). I've tried creating a
symbolic link in ~/Library/Caches/Metadata called Microsoft that points
to /Volumes/myvolume/Metadata and after switching on Spotlight
searching, I do get to search my Entourage messages, etc.

The problem is that with this setup, Entourage never adds to the cache.
If I rebuilt the cache, nothing happens (that is, the old cache is not
deleted).

If I symlink ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Microsoft/Entourage/2004/Main\
Identity to a directory on my encrypted volume and then rebuild,
Entourage renames "Main Identity" to ".-Main Identity" and rebuilds a
new cache in my home directory in the usual place.

So does anyone have any suggestions how I might relocate the Spotlight
cache to another location?

Jon

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I'd like to home Entourage's Spotlight metadata on an encrypted volume,
but I would prefer not to use FileVault since it'll slow down every disk
access in my home directory (and indeed it does). I've tried creating a
symbolic link in ~/Library/Caches/Metadata called Microsoft that points
to /Volumes/myvolume/Metadata and after switching on Spotlight
searching, I do get to search my Entourage messages, etc.

I don;t know how Entourage deals with that, but have you considered
trying an alias instead of a symlink??

Corentin

 

[Jon Connell]

I don;t know how Entourage deals with that, but have you considered
trying an alias instead of a symlink??

Pretty much the same behaviour: make an alias to the top-level Microsoft
directory and Entourage ignores it. Make an alias to the Main Identity
directory and Entourage ignores it, but blows it away when you rebuild
the cache.

This is all very strange because, as I understand things, Entourage must
be going out of its way to screw up. I'd expect the aliases/symlinks to
be entirely transparent to the app. I can sort of see how linking Main
Identity fails as the app will delete that "folder" and recreate it when
you rebuild, but I don't get how it cannot create a new cache when a
directory above that in the hierarchy is aliased/symlinked.

Jon

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I'd expect the aliases/symlinks to
be entirely transparent to the app.

I would have thought so too especially since you can move your MUD
folder like that.


Corentin