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Where are my emails located?

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10 replies

by jnk

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I use Outlook 2003 with Exchange and organise my emails into folders on my local drive. When I am looking for an email using Advanced Find and find it how do I find out which folder it is located in?

This would be very useful as other emails on the same topic would also be in the same folder.

I know I can just move the email I have found to a specific location but that doesn't help me to find where I put similar emails.

10 replies

by thechas

A lot depends on how you are saving the emails to local folders.

Do you have local folders setup in Outlook that stores emails you drag to them into folders that you set up?

If so, all of these emails are in your local .pst file.

If you use the save function and manually save your emails to your hard drive, then you should get a report as to what folder the file was found in.

Chas

by jnk

Thanks for replying so quickly:
I have many local data files setup and I have to search each one separately. However I have many levels of folders and the email I find could be in one of hundreds of subfolders.

To get the file there in the first place I generally drag the email from the inbox to the appropriate folder. The folder location seems logical at the time ... !!

I have been doing this for 10 years or more so the issue gets more difficult over time!

When you say I can get a report will this give me full path to the sub-folder the email is in.

If I open the email and look-up its properties it only gives me the folder the file is located in not the full tree the email is located in.

by thechas

Are you dragging the emails to folders in the folder pane of Outlook (left hand column), or are you dragging them to folders on your desktop or in Windows Explorer?

If you are dragging the emails to folders in the Outlook folder pane, they are still all in what could be a single PST file on your hard drive.

Since you can find your emails using Outlook, I suspect that this is the case.

It is only if you are actively saving the email to your hard drive that you should be able to see the full path to the file.

It sound like you need some form of information manager or, even a program that creates a database from your PST file.

As I have never had a need for this level of mail retrieval, I do not have any programs to suggest. My first thought is to take a look at what the Exchange back-up and email discovery providers have to offer.

Chas

by thumbsup2

After you have completed one search and have the results being displayed for you, right click the column headers and choose Customize Current View. In the window, click Fields..., then from the drop down box choose "All Post Fields" which will list a lot of different columns you can add to the view... choose "In Folder" and move it to the right. Then move it up to where you want it to fit between other fields being displayed. Click OK twice to get out.

Now, since you have multiple PST files open you will know which folder within THAT PST file you've located the email.

by jnk

Hi ThumbsUp2

Great response, thanks.

However, I realised that I'm already using that column. It gives me the folder the email is in (in the pst file) but not the position of the folder in the hierarchy of folders as I use multiple nested folders to store (hide) my emails.

What I'm looking for is the full path of the email rather than just the single folder it lives in.

by older mycroft

You are looking for a complete file path to a directory that only exists as a database entry within a PST file.

If you need the actual file path to the email, it doesn't exist - it only exists as an entry within the PST database.

by thumbsup2

Even if you have a folder hierarchy within the Inbox extending multiple levels, there is no 'path' like we would expect to see if it were actual folders on the HDD.

by jnk

Thanks for replying. I understand that the emails are arranged inside the .pst file in a virtual directory structure but surely it's the same for files on a hard drive? And there are plenty of utilities for managing and searching for files there. Files only exist exist because they are referenced in the directory structure which is a bunch of data (a file even?) held on the physical drive?

I suppose I am frustrated because a facility that would be helpful to me is not available. I suppose most people would not be pernickity about organising emails in a complex tree structure and needing a facility to find them later!

Thanks for your help, I appreciate all the responses but I don't think it's worth continuing this thread as the facility I'm looking for maybe doesn't exist.

by jnk

I appreciate your time in replying to my question but realise that I must be a one-off needing a facility that no-one sees as useful.

Thanks for yor time and I think it's time to close the thread.

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