Archive Tips?

Hi,

I installed the demo version of Eaglefiler a couple of hours ago and going through all the options.

I have a few questions where I working on, but can’t find a answer to very easily.

I will explain my environment first. I have a Macbook Pro, a Macbook and an iMac. I’m using Entourage as my email client, but that’s under consideration at this moment. My current Entourage database is about 7 to 8GB and that’s the reason for looking at archiving at this moment, because Entourage is giving me a hard time. On the iMac and Macbook there is more then one user. My Macbook Pro is traveling with me on visits or work at customer sites. Both the iMac and Macbook Pro have their own external harddisk. The Macbook is also on the same spot and not moving around (much). I have a large number of PST files. And my email consist about 12 years of mail.

My questions:

  • How to deal with the PST and MBOX files? When importing them they are not searchable or browsable, I understood.
  • These files have nested folders in them (i.e. customers/name/project. I noticed you cannot put these complete strings into Eaglefiler. How to deal with that?
  • How do I setup the environment with Eaglefiler. Keeping in mind that I have a very large amount of documents (PDF, PPT, DOC, etc) too.
  • How to deal with multiple DB’s in Eaglefiler. Are they searchable or do I need to do a search on all of them?
  • Can I migrate easily, after everything is archived, to for example Apple Mail?

I know it’s a lot of questions, but I’m in a hurry, because Entourage is not working properly anymore, which I can imagine with 7/8GB of mail :wink:

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Arjon G. Stellinga
All Storage.

As far as I am aware, there are no Mac applications that browse/search Microsoft Outlook’s PST files. However, there are various utilities to convert them to mbox format. EagleFiler uses mbox as its native mail storage format, and it supports both searching and browsing mbox files.

I’m not sure what “them” and “strings” refer to. Mbox files are flat, not nested, although you can have folders of (not in) them. EagleFiler does support nested folders. You can either create them from within EagleFiler or import a nested folder structure, e.g. via drag and drop from the Finder.

Could you ask a more specific question?

EagleFiler lets you open multiple libraries at once, but you can only search one at a time. You can search all your libraries at once via Spotlight, although Spotlight does not support mbox files.

Yes, EagleFiler stores mail as folders of mbox files, and Apple Mail can import this format while maintaining the hierarchy.

I was wondering if the PST files could go directly into EagleFiler as single mails. If not then I need to convert them first.

With them I mean the PST, MBOX files and my current mail client. and with strings I mean the structure of the nested folders within those files, like “customers/name/projects”. If I understand correct I have to create the main “customers” folder and underneath I can create a “name” subfolder and then place the project mail folder in EagleFiler, This way it will be very manual, but it works.

I have lots and lots of mail, but also lots of documents. What’s the best thing to do. Create different DB’s on a per year basis, or any other way? I have no experience with EagleFiler yet and don’t want to do a different approach when I’m half way during importing. Not with so much mail and documents. I can’t find any size, record, etc limits.

Ok, I already made the discussion to create single mails (see above), so not make use of MBOX/PST files.

Perfect, because Entourage is ending soon on my computers. I get sick and tired of the Identity messages and rebuilding!

I will shutdown my laptop for tonight, but I’m wondering if you pull me over the line with EagleFiler. I do have a good feeling about this. I normally work with large companies and software like Symantec Enterprise Vault, but that’s a different category.

Thanks for your quick and sound answers!

PS. Can you tell me which kind of license I need in my situation?

Regards,
Arjon G. Stellinga

You can store PST files in EagleFiler, but if you want to be able to browse/search the e-mails inside, you would need to convert the PSTs to mbox format.

It’s not clear to me what format your mail is currently in. Your first post only mentioned Entourage, which uses neither PST nor mbox. If you have folders of mbox files, you can import those directly. Otherwise, you could import a flat list of mailboxes from Entourage, but you would need to manually create the folder structure in EagleFiler.

It’s easy to move files between two EagleFiler libraries, so I see no reason that you have to decide now. It mostly comes down to how you want to browse and search the information—is it more convenient to have everything together or compartmentalized by year or type?

There are no hard limits. How many document files do you have? How many e-mail messages?

For a large volume of mail, I highly recommend using mbox files. It will be much faster and use less RAM and disk space.

For a single user with multiple Macs, you need a regular 1-user license.

Michael, I get the picture. It’s all because of my used structure in my mail clients. I will figure out a way I will put it in EagleFiler.

Documents - between 50.000 and 60.000 docs of all kind (pdf, doc, ppt, etc)
Mail - between 1.000.000 and 1.500.000 (currently in PST, MBOX and Entourage)

Yes, but as I wrote above. The current structure won’t let me, so I have to reorganize everything. I have to think about it.

Ok, but I have multiple users on the Macbook and iMac, so will that make a 2-pack?

Thanks again!

A modern Mac should be able to handle all that in one library, although EagleFiler will be faster if you split it up into a few smaller ones.

Right.