Best Way To Archive Emails For Later Searching? 385
An anonymous reader writes "I have kept every email I have ever sent or received since 1990, with the exception of junk mail (though I kept a lot of that as well). I have migrated my emails faithfully from Unix mail, to Eudora, to Outlook, to Thunderbird and Entourage, though I have left much of the older stuff in Outlook PST files. To make my life easier I would now like to merge all the emails back into a single searchable archive — just because I can. But there are a few problems: a) Moving them between email systems is SLOW; while the data is only a few GB, it is hundred of thousands of emails and all of the email systems I have tried take forever to process the data. b) Some email systems (i.e. Outlook) become very sluggish when their database goes over a certain size. c) I don't want to leave them in a proprietary database, as within a few years the format becomes unsupported by the current generation of the software. d) I would like to be able to search the full text, keep the attachments, view HTML emails correctly and follow email chains. e) Because I use multiple operating systems, I would prefer platform independence. f) Since I hope to maintain and add emails for the foreseeable future, I would like to use some form of open standard. So, what would you recommend?"
It's obvious (Score:4, Funny)
Alphabetically!
Re:Psychiatric consultation! (Score:5, Funny)
Print (Score:5, Funny)
Print then scan
mbox + grep (Score:5, Funny)
I use mbox format [wikipedia.org] files and grep [gnu.org].
IMO, one can't get much more portable than that.
Re:Psychiatric consultation! (Score:1, Funny)
You, sir, are a mental case! I suspect you have OCD with some component of Aspbergers that is making you have this fixation on doing all this work to save ancient bits of information.
You, sir, are a jerk! I suspect you have low self-esteem with some component of hemorrhoids that is making you have this fixation on being rude.
Re:RETARD MODERATION (Score:5, Funny)
Parent is +informative and/or +interesting, not troll. Fucking brain dead moderators these days. Sheesh.
it suggested a linux solution and made the windows weenies realize how useless their os is. by extension they realized how tiny their penises are and then they finally understood why they like Micro Soft because it describes them perfectly. so they got mad and said "i'll mod it down, yeah, that'll teach them a lesson and make me feel like a real man again!"
Re:Psychiatric consultation! (Score:3, Funny)
June 2001 - "Dave, can't go out tonight. I got a date with that fat chick.YEAH!"
Sept 2001 - "Dave, She's told me she pregnant."
Jan 2002 - "Dave, will you be the best man at the wedding
Shhhh - Dave's the real father (AC doesn't know)..
Domino (Score:5, Funny)
It has good full text indexing, you can keep your mail on a client, and on the server, with incredibly flexible replication rules for what is stored where.
It supports IMAP, so it talks well to most clients.
The iPhone syncs seamlessly with it via ActiveSync, and an Android client is in beta as we speak.
It includes an http client, and the http client even offers offline access. That's right. You can use the http client, and still read your mail and write emails that will be sent the next time you make a connection.
It also has folders, but you can put any email into as many folders as you want, so you have the best of both Outlook folders and Gmail tags.
It supports auto-processing rules for automatic filing of data, as well as being a full development environment if you want to get really fancy.
It is brain dead easy to set up and maintain.
The server runs on Linux and Window, and the client runs on Linux, Windows and Mac.