Spotlight & EML files

[Biju_Pillai]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: Exchange

The spotlight application does not seem to index eml files generated using Entourage. It only indexes the filename and not the contents.

I tried the command:
mdlimport -n -d1 <myfile.eml>

It succeeded saying "Imported <myfile.eml> of type 'com.apple.mail.email' with no plugin.

I tried listing the plugins and it did show the 'Mail.mdimporter'

How do i ensure the contents of the eml file are also indexed in Spotlight? Do i need to write a plugin for the same?

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

The spotlight application does not seem to index eml files generated
using Entourage. It only indexes the filename and not the contents.

I tried the command: mdlimport -n -d1 <myfile.eml>

It succeeded saying "Imported <myfile.eml> of type
'com.apple.mail.email' with no plugin.

I tried listing the plugins and it did show the 'Mail.mdimporter'

No Entourage in the list??
Is Office installed in /Applications on your Mac?? The mdimporter for
Entourage is hidden inside the Application package now. The app might be
in a location where Spotlight didn't notice it :-\

Corentin

 

[Diane Ross]

How do i ensure the contents of the eml file are also indexed in Spotlight? Do
i need to write a plugin for the same?

See this checklist:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/syncservices.html#ss1>

 

[Biju_Pillai]

Entourage is installed and all the messages in Entourage are indexed.

Only the eml files lying on the desktop are not getting indexed. There are no exclusions in Spotlight.

Biju

 

[Diane Ross]

Entourage is installed and all the messages in Entourage are indexed.

Only the eml files lying on the desktop are not getting indexed. There are no
exclusions in Spotlight.

Is there a reason you are keeping them on your desktop? It's much more
convenient to use Spotlight search in Entourage.

 

[William Smith [MVP]]

Entourage is installed and all the messages in Entourage are indexed.

Only the eml files lying on the desktop are not getting indexed.
There are no exclusions in Spotlight.

I just dragged a message to my Desktop and waited about a minute to give
Spotlight a chance to index it.

I searched for its specific information and found the .eml file in my
Spotlight results so looks like this does work.

You might consider rebuilding your Spotlight index. Select Apple menu
--> System Preferences... --> Spotlight. Drag your hard drive into the
Privacy window and wait a few minutes. Then delete your hard drive from
the Privacy window. When you select your Spotlight icon in the upper
right corner you should see it indexing.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/youtalk>
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/meck>

 

[Biju_Pillai]

I did try removing and re-adding the drive but no luck. Only the name of the eml file is indexed and not its contents.

I even tried moving the file to the Entourage cache location but no luck.

All the required mdimporter files for Entourage are present in the required locations .

 

[William Smith [MVP]]

I did try removing and re-adding the drive but no luck. Only the name
of the eml file is indexed and not its contents.

I even tried moving the file to the Entourage cache location but no
luck.

All the required mdimporter files for Entourage are present in the
required locations .

Specifically, which mdimporter files are you referencing for Entourage?
Entourage has one within its app bundle but this is for interpreting the
Entourage cache files generated for Spotlight.

Microsoft hasn't provided a mdimporter file for .eml files on the
Desktop. I don't know of any mdimporter that allows Spotlight to index
..eml files but that's not to say one doesn't exist. Just not from Microsoft.

--

bill

Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/youtalk>
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/meck>

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Microsoft hasn't provided a mdimporter file for .eml files on the
Desktop.

Actually, I really don;t see why the location of the files would make
any difference proivided it's an indexed location (and ~/Desktop
*should* be).

You could try force-reindex the desktop to see if it makes a difference:
mdimport ~/Desktop

If this still doesn't work, you could also reset indexing altogether and
let Spotlight re-index the entire Mac:
sudo mdutil -E /

Corentin

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

You could try force-reindex the desktop to see if it makes a difference:
mdimport ~/Desktop

If you want details, you could even use:
mdimport -d 1 ~/Desktop

It will list all imported files, mentioning the mdimporter used in the
process.


Corentin

 

[William Smith [MVP]]

If you want details, you could even use:
mdimport -d 1 ~/Desktop

It will list all imported files, mentioning the mdimporter used in the
process.

The Entourage mdimporter is for the cache files it creates in the user's
Library folder. Those are not .eml files but rather .vRge08* files.

When I run the command above the result says it imported my test .eml
file "of type 'com.apple.mail.email' with no plugin". That tells me the
file name was indexed but not the file contents.

--

bill

Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/youtalk>
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/meck>

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

The Entourage mdimporter is for the cache files it creates in the user's
Library folder. Those are not .eml files but rather .vRge08* files.

When I run the command above the result says it imported my test .eml
file "of type 'com.apple.mail.email' with no plugin". That tells me the
file name was indexed but not the file contents.

Very very true!!! I forgot about that :-\

Corentin

 

[Biju_Pillai]

Thanks everyone for the help.

I have never written a Spotlight importer. So need a quick clarification on the same

If I write an importer for EML files, how would the attachments (say pdfs, office files) get indexed? Would spotlight automatically call the required importer if identified or EML importer would need to cater to the same?

Thanks in advance

 

[Diane Ross]

I have never written a Spotlight importer. So need a quick clarification on
the same

If I write an importer for EML files, how would the attachments (say pdfs,
office files) get indexed? Would spotlight automatically call the required
importer if identified or EML importer would need to cater to the same?

This is not something that most users can do AFAIK. Try looking at other
alternatives like using an archive Identity in Entourage or a third part
application like EAgleFiler (same author as SpamSieve) Free 30-day,
fully-featured trial.

EagleFiler: Collect, Organize, and Search Your Information - For Mac OS X
<http://c-command.com/eaglefiler/>

One free option is to use eMessage Archiver. It uses a free runtime version
of FileMaker. Another option that backs up to FileMaker is Mail to FileMaker
Importer. Both are $15.