DBX search

Just discovered another use for Google Desktop – searching through backed up DBX email files.

Email storage is, of course, a big issue for business now, not only because of legal obligations to retain messages but for good business practice reasons as well. And with the volume of email showing little sign of letting up, it seems no time at all before a cleaned up in-box is straining at the seams once again.

Overlook the task for too long and email client software such as Outlook Express will get slower and slower and slower. Eventually strange error messages and other curious behaviour will begin. By then it’s time to do an urgent back up or, at the very least, a search and destroy mission for junk.

In Outlook Express, it’s possible to highlight messages and copy them to another location by clicking and dragging. The end result is rather messy, a back up folder that’s difficult to manage. A much cleaner solution is to copy the DBX folders. Be warned, though, mucking around with DBX records can have unexpected consequences like messages vanishing from your inbox, so be careful.

Taking full responsibility, then, for your own actions, locate the email store folder. In Outlook Express you can find out where by clicking tools/options/maintenance. The precise location is found by clicking the Store Folder button. Usually the email store folder will be lurking somewhere in C drive’s Documents and Settings folder. To copy and paste the individual DBX folders to a CD, you will first have to quit out of Outlook Express.

Now, to later search through a backed up DBX record - there’s one for each folder in your inbox - do not drag it back into your store folder under any circumstances. This will overwrite the current messages and, as Harry Enfield’s DIY dad character used to say, “You don’t want to do that!”

No, to retrieve backed up messages drag the DBX files from the CD onto the desktop and then fire up Google Desktop to search through them with zero risk to your current inbox.

You can search pretty much as normal by entering an email address, name, subject or word within an email message. The Google Desktop search is as fast as stink, with the results sorted by date by default. Sorting by relevance and further refining of the search term will then help to hunt down your quarry.

Clicking on a result opens the email in your browser. Links at the top of the page allow users to reply, reply all or compose from a new message within their email software. But copying and pasting from the web page is required to include the text from the previous message in the new email.

Attachments are also a bit of problem. These cannot be accessed from the DBX folder using Google Desktop. Presumably, though, if the attachment was vitally important you have a copy of it elsewhere on your hard disk and can search for it using Google Desktop. This, though, may be slightly tricky if you can’t recall the name of the document or don’t have a Scooby about what the contents might be.

While there may be a couple of downsides to this method of email storage and retrieval, it’s Excalibur compared to searching through a folder of individually copied messages one by one.