Timestamps in Sent items

  • Thread starter Alfred von Campe
  • Start date
A

Alfred von Campe

I have set up Entourage to save everything I send in a Sent folder. I do
this for both a POP account (where the Sent folder is on my Mac) and an IMAP
account (where the Sent folder Is on the server). I often save entire email
trails in a folder for future reference. I include both the items I send as
well as any replies. The problem is that Entourage doesn't put a proper
date in the messages I send, so that when I look at an email trail in a
folder sorted by date, the messages I sent and all the replies are not in
chronological order.

I could solve this by sending a carbon copy (or a blind carbon copy) to
myself on every message. Unfortunately, Entourage doesn't have an option to
automatically do so (or at least I haven't found one).

Any suggestions on how to best resolve this issue (other than manually
cc'ing myself on every message)?

Alfred
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

I have set up Entourage to save everything I send in a Sent folder. I do
this for both a POP account (where the Sent folder is on my Mac) and an IMAP
account (where the Sent folder Is on the server). I often save entire email
trails in a folder for future reference. I include both the items I send as
well as any replies. The problem is that Entourage doesn't put a proper
date in the messages I send, so that when I look at an email trail in a
folder sorted by date, the messages I sent and all the replies are not in
chronological order.

I could solve this by sending a carbon copy (or a blind carbon copy) to
myself on every message. Unfortunately, Entourage doesn't have an option to
automatically do so (or at least I haven't found one).

Any suggestions on how to best resolve this issue (other than manually
cc'ing myself on every message)?
Click to expand...


First of all, you do not need to do this. Entourage does show the Sent time
of all Sent messages, including those in IMAP Sent Items folders. Just make
sure you include a SENT column in these folders: go to View
menu/Columns/Sent. (You van always View/Internet headers or View/Source if
you want more detail.

That won't help for POP messages, of course, if you use more than one
computer. So you can do this:

Copy and paste the following script into Script Editor:


tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
set theWindow to window 1
if class of theWindow is draft window then
set theAccount to account of theWindow
set theAddress to email address of theAccount
set displayName to name of (get me contact)
set myBCC to "\"" & displayName & "\" <" & theAddress & ">"
set bccRecips to (BCC recipients of theWindow)
if bccRecips does not contain myBCC then
if bccRecips ‚ "" then set bccRecips to bccRecips & ", "
set BCC recipients of theWindow to bccRecips & myBCC
try -- need to prod window to display bcc
select progress window
select theWindow
on error
open progress window
select theWindow
close progress window
end try
end if
end if
end tell


In order for you to actually see yourself as BCC, it needs to flash the
Progress Window open and shut. personally, I'd find that annoying. If you
trust the script to work without seeing the BCC in front of your eyes (and
you can(, REMOVE these lines:

try -- need to prod window to display bcc
select progress window
select theWindow
on error
open progress window
select theWindow
close progress window
end try

Save the script as "Add BCC" in the Entourage Script Menu Items folder in
Microsoft user Data folder in your OS X user's Documents folder.

Rthen go to Tools/Schedules i Entourage. Make a new repeating schedule to
repeat every 1 minute, and set the action to Run AppleScript, click the
Script... button and browse to this saved script.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

Save the script as "Add BCC" in the Entourage Script Menu Items folder in
Microsoft user Data folder in your OS X user's Documents folder.

Then go to Tools/Schedules i Entourage. Make a new repeating schedule to
repeat every 1 minute, and set the action to Run AppleScript, click the
Script... button and browse to this saved script.
Click to expand...

If you discover that Sent column for IMAP accounts is adequate and you only
need BCC for POP accounts, then insert immediately after this line:

set theAccount to account of theWindow


the following line:

if class of theAccount is POP account then

and add another

end if

line just above the final 'end tell' line. then the script will only add
your BCC to POP messages, not IMAP.


--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.
 
A

Alfred von Campe

First of all, you do not need to do this. Entourage does show the Sent time of
all Sent messages, including those in IMAP Sent Items folders. Just make sure
you include a SENT column in these folders: go to View menu/Columns/Sent. (You
van always View/Internet headers or View/Source if you want more detail.
Click to expand...

Aha! Sent messages do have a Sent field, but the don't have a Received
field. All my IMAP folders are sorted by Received (which is the default
sorting anyway). I could enable the Sent column in all my folders and sort
by that, but I'd rather not.
That won't help for POP messages, of course, if you use more than one
computer. So you can do this:

Copy and paste the following script into Script Editor:
Click to expand...

Thanks for providing this. It will take me some time to digest/try this,
but it looks pretty cool!

Alfred
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

Aha! Sent messages do have a Sent field, but the don't have a Received
field. All my IMAP folders are sorted by Received (which is the default
sorting anyway). I could enable the Sent column in all my folders and sort
by that, but I'd rather not.
Click to expand...

You mentioned that you use the IMAP Sent Items folder for sent mail. Just go
into THAT folder - only - and deselect Received column and select Sent
column instead. It won't affect any other folder (unless some day you make
new subfolders of this Sent items folder). You can keep all the other IMAP
folders, including the INBOX, with Received column, and replace it by Sent
only in this folder. I'm not sure why you might be averse to doing this.
(It's true that if you have the sort of IMAP account where all other folders
are subfolders of the INBOX they will have been created with Received, as
the Inbox has, rather than Sent (as the local Sent Items has), but that
doesn't mean you have to keep it that way.) That's what I would suggest you
do, unless you have some specific reason which I can't guess at for not
doing so.
Thanks for providing this. It will take me some time to digest/try this,
but it looks pretty cool!
Click to expand...


--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.
 
A

Alfred von Campe

On 8/7/03 9:21 PM, in article BB584927.2DAA0%[email protected], "Paul

Paul, first let me thank you for all your help so far. I really appreciate
it.
You mentioned that you use the IMAP Sent Items folder for sent mail. Just go
into THAT folder - only - and deselect Received column and select Sent
column instead. It won't affect any other folder (unless some day you make
new subfolders of this Sent items folder). You can keep all the other IMAP
folders, including the INBOX, with Received column, and replace it by Sent
only in this folder. I'm not sure why you might be averse to doing this.
Click to expand...

Not only am I not averse to doing this, I have already done this. The
problem occurs as soon as I file away the messages from the Sent folder into
another folder, because I like to keep an entire email "conversation"
together for future reference. In the other folders, all my sent email is
at the "top" of the folder (I sort by ascending Received date), and the
replies are in chronological order at the "bottom".
(It's true that if you have the sort of IMAP account where all other folders
are subfolders of the INBOX they will have been created with Received, as
the Inbox has, rather than Sent (as the local Sent Items has), but that
doesn't mean you have to keep it that way.) That's what I would suggest you
do, unless you have some specific reason which I can't guess at for not
doing so.
Click to expand...

The IMAP server in use with this "problem" account does indeed put all the
folders (including Sent) under the Inbox. Maybe that is the root of the
problem -- the IMAP server software installed on my email server? I think
it's named Courier. We use different IMAP server software on my other IMAP
account.

Alfred
 
A

Alfred von Campe

It's time to resurrect this thread. Let me summarize the situation so far:

o I like to keep entire email "conversations" in an IMAP folder. This
means that I keep emails I send as well as emails I receive in the
same folder.
o The default sorting field in all IMAP folders is the Received column
(the Sent column isn't even visible by default), but the problem is
that messages sent by me in Entourage do not have a Received field
(just a Sent field).
o One way to solve this problem is to bcc myself on every message sent,
but Entourage doesn't provide an automatic way to bcc yourself on all
messages sent.
o Paul Berkowitz provided an AppleScript script to add a bcc to every
message being composed, and I have decided to go this route.

I've been using the script for a couple of days, and although it works, I
have found a couple of problems with it:

1. Even though there is a check for it, I get multiple bcc to myself
(i.e., the line "if bccRecips does not contain myBCC then" is not
doing what it's supposed to do). This script is scheduled to run
every minute to add a bcc field to messages being composed.
2. The bcc address shows up as "Trial User <[email protected]>, and
I've looked in vain to where "Trial User" is set but I can't find it
(this isn't too critical since it's in the bcc field and will never
be seen, but it's bugging me :).

Thanks in advance for any help,
Alfred
 
J

Jeff Kenny

I've looked in vain to where "Trial User" is set but I can't find it
(this isn't too critical since it's in the bcc field and will never
be seen, but it's bugging me :).
Click to expand...

If you haven't already found this...I think I've figured this one out.
Go to your Address Book and find the entry for yourself. Now click on
the "Contact" menu and select "This Contact is Me"

Finally do a search for "Name contains:" "Trial" and there's most
likely an entry in there for Trial User. Delete it.
 
Top