Mail files overwrite others sans warning

tagraves · #1 January 20th, 2009, 06:00 PM

Sorry about the French. Character limit.

I used to use Entourage, and now use Mail. But I've discovered one quirk that I don't understand, after nearly 20 years of Mac use.

What I do is drag all the emails from my clients (I work with about 60 different new clients a year) OUT of the application window and in to folders specific to each client on another drive. This way I don't end up having a humongous inbox, and I've always been one to keep my data separate from my application in case the app develops a problem.

Because so many people are lazy about replying, I end up with many messages that have the same subject line. When I was using Entourage, if I dragged a fresh email over in to that client's folder, it would create a new filename (adding a _1, or _2, etc..) automatically and thus I'd keep all my emails organized. For instance, I have my 2008 clients all in one folder, and as I clean up my inbox I can just drag messages in to their respective folders without concern because I know they'll just create new filenames if there's a conflict.

But in Mail, if I drag a mail message over to a folder, it simply overwrites the existing file if the new message has the same subject line, without any warning. Thus I lose emails. Very frustrating. And even weirder, there's not even a warning that pops up, as happens when you have any other naming conflict throughout the OS and in many other apps.

I know I can do a "save as" but that means I have to navigate AND rename every time I perform that step. Takes much more time.

Is there a script or something I can do in Terminal (and I am not versed in either) to replicate the way Entourage does it? It really would mean a great deal to me, and I hate to even think of switching back, because Mail does do some other cool things I like.

Thanks in advance.

MacPro 3.2 ghz, 10 gigs RAM, OS 10.5.6

MisterMe · #2 January 20th, 2009, 06:33 PM

Your problem is odd because my installation of Mail has no compunction about keeping duplicate emails in the same folder. Is there anything unusual about your messages?

tagraves · #3 January 21st, 2009, 01:08 PM

It appears to be an issue of keeping mails in a finder folder rather than a folder in the mail application itself. If I create folders in Mail, I'm fine, but I don't really want to do that (mostly just because of habit and prior filing methods) but it's when I take them out of Mail and store them separately that I have problems.

MisterMe · #4 January 21st, 2009, 05:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tagraves

It appears to be an issue of keeping mails in a finder folder rather than a folder in the mail application itself. ...

MacOS X does not support have more than one file with a given name in a single folder. If you want to save your messages as files, then you need to give them unique names.