[Macworld]

Post your comments for Archiving e-mail messages as text files here

[jhough61]

A much easier way to create a text document from an email (at least in Mail) is to select the email you'd like to save and save as from the file menu (shift/command/s). The dialog box will ask where you want to save the .rtfd file and if you'd like to save the attachments. Now you have the entire email and attachments saved in a text file and you can clean up your inbox!

[Chris Breen]

jhough61, on 16 February 2011 - 01:24 PM, said:

A much easier way to create a text document from an email (at least in Mail) is to select the email you'd like to save and save as from the file menu (shift/command/s). The dialog box will ask where you want to save the .rtfd file and if you'd like to save the attachments. Now you have the entire email and attachments saved in a text file and you can clean up your inbox!

That's a reasonable way to go if you want the entirety of each message and need separate files for each message, but I see instances where it makes a lot more sense to pull just portions of e-mail messages and save them to a single file. And that's the idea behind these techniques.

[JohnMcClung]

How do I archive Entourage (Office 2004) messages into individual, searchable files? I have way too many messages saved, but they're in folders and the organization structure is important to me. Is there a way to export my entire InBox and maintain the heirarchical folders?

[kranbollin]

If you use Entourage, there is a program called EEAX (www.softhing.com/eeax.html) which will do this for you pretty easily.

[dayr108]

DEVONthink Pro Office will archive email, and you can export Word documents form it. I have DEVONthink Pro, which I like a lot -- it's essentially a document database with powerful search abilities, but DEVONthink Pro won't archive email. You need DEVONthink Pro Office for that.

[JBeez]

And to add to JohnMcClung's comment re: Entourage 2004, how can one retrieve the emails when Entourage will not launch? I have a G5 experiencing trouble like that. Shared library errors upon launching anything. (It's been to the shop, got new RAM, passed the bench tests, still happening, gonna do a system overhaul once everything is archived completely). I'd like to rescue important emails and save as text before wiping the hard drive.

I do have a G4 laptop available.

And for those of us still living in the dark ages (pre-Leopard), how can we accomplish saving as text files when there are 100s of emails involved?

[KurtTodoroff]

I am looking for an Applescript that:

1: Prompts and allows the user to select one or more Apple Mail email messages from within Mail (10.4, 10.5, 10.6).

2: Prompts and allows the user to select a save-to folder.

3: For each message, saves it as a PDF file in the save-to folder, using the following naming convention for the PDF file:

"YYYY-MM-DD HH.MM.SS Email From FIRSTNAME LASTNAME - SUBJECT",

"YYYY-MM-DD HH.MM.SS Email To FIRSTNAME LASTNAME - SUBJECT",

where in the email date-sent stamp (if I am the sender) or date-received stamp (if I am the recipient):

YYYY = the year
MM = the two-digit month
DD = the two-digit day
HH = the two-digit hour (in 24-hour time)
MM = the two-digit minute
SS = the two-digit second
FIRSTNAME is the email sender's first name for email that I receive (or is the email recipient's first name for email that I send)
LASTNAME is the email sender's last name for email that I receive (or is the email recipient's first name for email that I send)
SUBJECT = the email's subject line

For example: 2010-04-10 16.32.48 Email From Kris Ryan - Status Of Payroll Updates.pdf
For example: 2010-04-10 16.33.55 Email To Sue Anderson - RE Status Of Payroll Updates.pdf (Colon omitted after "RE".)

4: For each attachment to the message, saves it as a PDF file in the same directory using the naming convention:

"YYYY-MM-DD HH.MM.SS Email From FIRSTNAME LASTNAME Z Attachment - NUMBER - FILENAME",

where:

YYYY-MM-DD HH.MM.SS Email From FIRSTNAME LASTNAME = as above
NUMBER = an integer representing the attachment number (1, 2, ...) sorted according to filename alphabetical order
FILENAME = the name of the file attached to the email, including its extension (.docx, .xlsx, etc.)
The letter "Z" sorts the attachment PDFs after its respective parent email in the directory.

For example: 2010-04-10 16.32.48 Email From Kris Ryan Z Attachment - 1 - List Of Suggestions To Moore.doc.pdf
For example: 2010-04-10 16.32.48 Email From Kris Ryan Z Attachment - 2 - Proposed Salary Adjustments.xls.pdf
For example: 2010-04-10 16.32.48 Email From Kris Ryan Z Attachment - 3 - Salary History.pps.pdf


Note: The email attachment may consist of a PDF or MS Office file (Word, Excel, Power Point); however, a smart implementation will be able to handle any attachment kind. If the attachment is a PDF file, then save it "as is" using the stipulated naming convention, without passing it through Distiller.

Thank you.

Kurt Todoroff
kurt.r.todoroff@comcast.net