Spotlight searching archived email message content

[Throski]

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

I've read about various methods of archiving Entourage email messages, but I haven't found any that appear to provide the ability to use Spotlight to search the archived messages. That's an important capability for me. What I do is to export messages to .eml files using a folder export script that I created (mostly from Barry Wainwright, I think) that fixes problems with duplicate file names, inappropriate characters, etc. Then I change the name extensions to "txt" with Automator.

That introduces a few problems for viewing in QuickLook or a text editor in some cases, but if I need to, after I've found messages I want, I can rename them with the .eml extension and read in Entourage again.

Is there a better way to be able to search through text of archived messages? Is there a plug-in for Spotlight that will let me index .eml files? Thanks.

 

[Diane Ross]

Is there a better way to be able to search through text of archived messages?
Is there a plug-in for Spotlight that will let me index .eml files? Thanks.

You can create a second Identity in Entourage and name it archive. Leave it
open long enough for Spotlight to index.

A Spotlight search in the Entourage application will not see those messages,
but if you search in the Finder, it will find the messages and ask you to
switch Identities to view.

Another option is to use a third party application like EagleFiler from the
author of SpamSieve.

<http://c-command.com/eaglefiler/>

 

[Throski]

--

Diane

Thanks for the response. I'm not sure I like the idea of juggling identities, mainly because I think rebuilding the Spotlight index is something that is needed rather routinely, and I don't relish the thought of binding that routine with the necessity to activate the alternate identity. Unless I'm wrong, the ability to search the alternate identity would be lost after rebuilding Spotlight's index until the identity was activated and indexed again.

The EagleFiler application sounds interesting, but I think I would rather depend on my solution for two reasons. The first is that my solution places the burden of its functionality on the file system upon which Spotlight already depends, and second is that it has served me well since Spotlight was introduced, despite the extra effort needed to support it. The idea of becoming dependent on yet another commercial application just to allow me to manage searchable email archives doesn't appeal to me. Thanks again.