In & Out : Archiving Email

Quick links:

Import or Archive
Importing UNIX Mailboxes
Problems Importing or Moving Emails
Replying and Sending

PRO

Archiving Email

Email is an important item in many situations, both professional and personal. DEVONthink allows you to import email messages directly from supported email applications. It also allows you to import UNIX mailboxes (.mbox files) that can be exported from some other email clients.

Beyond dragging and dropping emails from an email client, you can select the View > Import command to show the Import sidebar. DEVONthink currently supports the following email applications:

The imported email messages are saved in their original file format (.eml) and are displayed using QuickLook. MailTags metadata on the messages is preserved as tags. In addition, the "read" and "flagged" status of email messages are transferred from Microsoft Entourage and Microsoft Outlook independently from your settings in Preferences > Files > Emails.

DEVONthink communicates with your email application using either AppleScript or, if you are using Apple Mail, through a special plugin that implements a direct link between Mail and DEVONthink. If the plugin is not automatically installed click here or select DEVONthink > Install Add-Ons to install it.

In addition to speeding up the transfer of email messages from Apple Mail to DEVONthink, the plugin adds an Add to DEVONthink 3 command to the Mailbox and Message menus of Apple Mail. This allows you to directly archive selected messages or mailboxes to your DEVONthink database while inside Mail. When accessing a supported mail application via AppleScript, automatic fetching of new mail is disabled. This does not happen when you use Apple Mail with the DEVONthink plugin installed.

Note: We highly recommend you install the Apple Mail plugin as the AppleScript implementation in Apple Mail is slow. Also, due to limitations in the AppleScript interface of Mail it's not possible to archive complete conversations from Apple Mail without the plugin installed.

Import or Archive

When it comes to archiving email, the question arises: "Do I use import or archive?" Here's the simple way to understand it:

Import Email: While Import can be used on a mailbox, it is generally used on selected, individual emails. This is especially useful when using a filtered view, e.g., filtering by a date range or recipient. You'd select those files and use the Import option.
Archive Mailbox: As the name implies, this command can only be used on selected mailboxes. The mailbox will be imported into a special Emails group. DEVONthink will attempt to preserve the mailbox structure shown in the email application. This is very useful for archiving a mailbox and keeping it up to date. Since previously imported emails are excluded from the mailbox view, subsequent visits to the Import sidebar will only show newly received emails. Using the Archive Mailbox option will import only those new emails into the existing Emails group in the database.

Depending on the settings in Preferences > Files > Emails > Conversations, DEVONthink can attempt to import complete conversations and optionally group them.

Note: Email threading is not an exact process. There has also been no standard defining relationships between messages for a very long time. DEVONthink will attempt to thread the conversations, but cannot guarantee all related emails will be detected.

Importing UNIX Mailboxes

UNIX mailboxes (.mbox files) exported from some email applications, e.g., Thunderbird or Postbox, can be imported into your database. There is no mailbox structure in these exported files so multiple mailboxes have to be exported and imported separately. They can be imported into DEVONthink in one of two ways:

File > Import: Use File > Import > UNIX Mailboxes, then select the .mbox file in the Open dialog and press Open. This will import the messages into a group in the current location.
Drag and Drop: Drag and drop the .mbox file onto DEVONthink's dock icon to import the messages into your database.

Problems Importing or Moving Emails

Briefly discussed in the Appendix, the UUID is a value given to each item in DEVONthink. It is unique to each item and more than one item can't have the same UUID. When email messages are imported, they are given such an identifier based on metadata from the actual email. This means you can't import the same message into a database more than once, as that would result in more than one file having the same UUID. This will be shown in DEVONthink's Window > Log. It can also cause issues when moving messages between databases. If you already imported messages into a database and forgot you did, trying to move the same email into it will fail.

In Preferences > Email you can enable Previously imported will become replicants to import the messages into the same database as replicants. However, this still will not allow moving messages into databases already containing those emails.

Replying and Sending

To reply to an archived email message, Control-click it in the item list and choose Send Reply. A draft message will be composed in your default email application.

Choose Send by Email to email a selected document from the item list.

Note: The inter-application communication capabilities of the email client you are using determine how well these two commands work. If the commands aren't producing the expected results, check with the developer about what kind of interactions they allow between applications.