ping Outlook-isti

Our systems people, in their wisdom, have decided to implement a
policy whereby all our Outlook .PST files will be migrated to some
fancy archiving system, and any future 'personal' or 'Archive' folders
will be treated in the same way.

Now that might not be a bad thing, but the ability to easily search
through all my old emails, both sent and recieved, acts as a large
part of my memory. The archive system is much less easily searchable,
and much more importantly has a finite time-span (3 years, I think)
after which any un-accessed files are deleted. It's possible to mark
them as 'keep forever', but only on specific files, and I erally CBA
to do that for all of the many thousands of emails in dozens of
folders.

So I need some mechanism, possibly another mail program, that can be
installed on an external drive (i.e. doesn't need admin rights and
registry access to install) that can do the following:

1. Take my existing .pst files and import them into a totally
searchable structure.
2. Allow me to select the entire contents of my Outlook inbox or sent
folder and copy (or move) them all directly into a new archive folder.

That's it, I think. Doesn't sound too much to ask; anyone any ideas?

--
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..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
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You can configure as many .pst files as you like in Outlook and have them
located anywhere that's accessible.

What's to stop you setting-up a .pst file in a location other than the norm
or as least outside of when this archive mechanism is looking, and using
that instead of, or in parallel with, the exist .pst structure?

You could start by copying your existing .pst file(s) to an alternate
location. If they are large you should compress them first - right-click on
the folder within Outlook - and only copy or otherwise do anything with the
..pst's when Outlook isn't running, otherwise it can get upset.

 

Including any .pst files you have on an external drive? If not, then -

- you can set up a new set of personal folders on your external drive

You can set up a rule to copy all received and sent mail to your new
personal folders. These should then be instantly available for
searching within your existing Outlook.

I have only a limited knowledge of Outlook, so the above may be
bollocks!

 

No I can't. They're disabling all use of .pst files.

Hence the need for a non-outlook, non-.pst file solution, as
previously explained.

But thanks anyway.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10
`\|/`
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See my other reply. I need a non-Outlook, non-PST file solution.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10
`\|/`
`

 

You're using an Exchange server, correct? Check if they've got IMAP or
POP3 enabled and use 'fetchmail' to suck down your mail and keep it
locally?

 

Sounds a bit technical, what's IMAP? I know that POP3 is disabled, and
I'd be fairly sure that anything allowing external access to the
exchange server would also be unavailable.

And presumably I'd need another email client to 'suck' it all down -
can I just get one that lets me copy stuff into it manually, and in
the first place from my existing .pst files?


--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10
`\|/`
`

 

Most solutions would be , because you're pitting one BOFH against
another if you want to bend the rules that way.

Another mail retrieval protocol like POP3, just newer, shinier and
"better" depending on your connection.

That would knock IMAP on the head most likely.

That's what fetchmail does - it does, err, fetch mail from a POP3 or
IMAP server and can either feed it into another mail server or (AFAIR)
drop it on your disk. For the latter you'd need a mail client that can
read mbox files. It wouldn't be able to do anything with your .pst files
though.

 

I believe that you can import PST's into thunderbird. Never tried it
mind.

 

Could this be of use?
<http://www.mailnavigator.com/mailnavigator.html>

 

No, it's installed quite happily, TYVM. Now I'm just seeing how the
imprt goes and how easy it is to copy stuff directly (as we won't have
pst files in the future)...

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10
`\|/`
`

 

I might give it a try (assuming I don't need to pay to do so) but it
looks like it's working on top of Outlook, whereas what I need is a
seperate repository. It doesn't say that it can import .pst files,
just that it can search them. Have you actually used it?

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10
`\|/`
`

 

Right, so not really much use then, ta anyway.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10
`\|/`
`

 

.... but it just won't actually run. Went through at least part of the
Import process then hung, and subsequent attempts to start it fail
too...

bugger.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10
`\|/`
`

 

After a restart it does actually run, but as soon as I select
Import/mail/Outlook it just hangs.

Ta...

but sadly it has exactly the same problem. Just hangs as soon as I try
to import anything.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10
`\|/`
`

 

*ding*

Leave it for a while and check that the process is doing stuff in the
task manager.

If it does fail, try to cut the pst into smaller chunks and then try
again.

 

One idea, & probably a stupendously dumb one, but can you set your
Outlook to automagically forward all emails to a Gmail addy & search
them there instead?

--
Krusty
www.MuddyStuff.co.uk
Off-Road Classifieds

'02 MV Senna '03 Tiger 955i '96 Tiger '79 Fantic Hiro 250

 

You could probvably do that with a copy of Mozilla Thunderbird running
under Portable Apps[1], from a USB stick. that's how I get at my
email from the work laptop without leaving a footprint. I also added
agent onto the same memory stick, so I can change between machines at
will.

Just import everything you need as a one off when you first set it up,
then you're good to go.

[1] http://portableapps.com/

 

Task manager said it was "not responding, although it occasionally got
up to 2% CPU usage. But I didn't think it was doing anything, mainly
because I'd have expected it to ask which folders or files I wanted to
import and it didn't get beyond the "Please select the email program
to import from" window. Task manager is fucking useless, of course,
and doesn't show I/O, but on restarting it there does seem to be a
fair amount of network traffic, so maybe it's doing something (the
..pst files are on a connected network drive).

I'll leave it running for a while and see if anything happens. Mebbe
be better at work with a local connection.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10
`\|/`
`

 

I guess so. Aren't they included within the pst files though?

Worth a try if all else fails. Didn't know you could export to csv.

OOOooh, now that looks like it might be just the thing. I'll check it
out later.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10
`\|/`
`