Is it worth migrating to native Apps for Spotlight benefits?

S

Steve Hyde

Hi,

I've been using Entourage since I got my Powerbook last year. I've just
upgraded to Tiger and would love Spotlight functionality for E mail. I'd
also like to see my addresses in Dashboard.

This is leading me to think about migrating away from Entourage to the
native Mac Mail, Address Book and Calendar apps.

One 'drawback' is that I won't have them all in a single application. Are
there any other significant disadvantages that I should consider, and can I
migrate my Entourage mail folders into Mail?

It seems to me also that I could at least archive my mail better using
Spotlight and smart folders than I can in Entourage. (Although I know that I
can export Entourage items to an archive, I don't seem to be able to 'delete
articles prior to a certain date' the way you can in Outlook. This is a
problem for me as I have a large number of E mail folders that I would have
to trawl through.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Steve
 
M

Michel Bintener

Hi,
whether you want to switch to Apple's apps or stick with Entourage is of
course your own decision. Note that it is fairly easy to migrate your data
from Entourage to Apple's apps, but there are problems when you want to move
back from Apple Mail 2 to Entourage. Don't worry, it can be done (if you
ever change your mind), but check this newsgroup for some tips.

There's a couple of things which you should know, like for instance why
Entourage's data does not show up in Spotlight. The reason is because
Entourage uses a database format; Apple's apps, however, save their data in
separate files (each e-mail message is for instance stored as a separate
file), and that's why Spotlight can search them. There is an inconvenient
method (which could be automated with AppleScript, I guess) which would
allow you to keep using Entourage and at the same time benefit from
Spotlight: if you export your e-mail/address book messages by dragging them
into Finder folders, they would be exported as separate files and would
therefore be searchable. That's just a small suggestion, but I think it's
worth thinking about.

As for your last question, re the "delete entries older than" option: you're
right, there is no direct way of doing is (for e-mails, anyway; it is
possible for calendar events. Check thee calendar preferences to find out
more). What you can do however is create a custom view with the condition
"date received is greater than xxx days old". This view will list all your
entries older than the amount of days you specified, and you can delete them
from within that view by marking them all and deleting them.
 
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