Slashdot Mirror
Best Way To Archive Emails For Later Searching?
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?"
Migrate all to gmail With gmail you got room for your couple of GB. And the search feature works like a charm. Only thing missing is "folders" to make it act like you are used to.
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
Use Gmail like a normal person, not your requirements but close enough [insert solution for offline Gmail backup here because Google are proprietary and evil]
Tried Google desktop? You can search your outlook/thunderbird mail in a blink of an eye, as well as anything else on your computer.