You know you should, but do you?
mara06 (2153 points) | Sun, 2008-06-01 20:35Saving important project-related e-mails, especially those with attachment from clients. What's the best way for OS X users to do this? The Save As RTF thing doesn't save attachments, though I believe there's an option for that. In any event, it doesn't work that way for me.
I'm using Apple's native Mail app., 10.5.3, although it often behaves badly for me, so I read my mail on my domain.
What do all you smart-ass designers out there know that I don't know? :-)
Mara
Mara
I don't bother to save them outside of Mail.
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I keep all of mine in Mail as well. But...
I have a special group in Address Book just for clients and have set-up a smart-folder in Mail to only display mail if they are a member of that address book group.
Sort of a quick-reference to find client mail at-a-glance no matter where the mail in-question is stored (within Mail).
Terrell Thornhill
e-zign Design Group
Good ideas, both. Can these folders be backed up onto a CD periodically? I guess so. Let me try that. Thanks :-)
Mara
Mara
You can backup your entire Mail folder by burning ~/Library/Mail or just individual emails by saving them to a particular folder and then burning that folder.
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Visit The Graphic Mac for graphics and Mac OS tips, reviews, tutorials and discussion.
Click and drag the email item from your web app to your desktop. it should bring everything with it.
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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The Salon Design Tech
I never ever delete emails.
I got myself out of a threatened $17,000 lawsuit one time by producing a thick stack of e-mails proving that someone else's ass was to blame. So I respect the wisdom of doing this! It just gets difficult after a while, when you have lots of clients, lots of back-and-forths with each one, etc. I suppose it's worth while to take the time to back everything up, though -- even though Time Machine is supposed to be doing this for us. I think Time Machine is just a way top make us run right out and by the new terrabyte backup drive, but then, I've lately become a little bit pessimistic about Apple's motives.
Mara
Maybe you should look at rewording your contract instead of focusing on email communications? Though they are definitely important. Was a difference of opinion on your contract at issue in your $17000 lawsuit case?
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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The Salon Design Tech
Just aware that it's a good idea not to lose things. You never know when you might have to refer back to message in which, let's say, a client said, "Print 10,000 instead of 5,000, please." :-)
The threatened lawsuit came about in this way. My husband's former boss had a pet employee who was actually an idiot. The boss assigned him to be my point person for the design and execution of mass mailing to promote an important company sales event. He took forever making such simple decisions as choosing which zip codes to target and approving my layout. Then pulled a disappearing act. I moved heaven and earth to contact the guy, to no avail. Thanks to my meticulous record of phone calls and e-mails, I was able to lay out for the boss exactly how the whole project had gone down, showing how I had pulled it through on my own initiative, saving the company the money already committed to the project when the idiot fell off the map. The boss discovered that as many as three (3!!!) of the mailing pieces were delivered late, arriving the day of the sale which it promoted. The company's owner tried to pin the blame for these late pieces on me, saying I had "sabotaged the event" (which was actually quite successful) and threatening to put his lawyers on my case to collect the $17,000 cost of the mailing -- only $320 of which went to me, by the way, since I'd done it at a discount since my husband stood to earn major commissions during the sale. The idiot employee (and the boss) eventually admitted I had actually saved their asses, but not before putting mine through the wringer. My husband ultimately resigned over the whole mess, outraged by the treatment I'd received and fed up with the company's generally poor management. This was about three years ago, I think. Rumor is that the company is now about to lose its exclusive franchise with the manufacturer of its "star" product, partly because of its sub-par advertising. Not that this makes me smile, mind you..
Well, you did ask.... ;-)
Mara
That's a sucky story! Sorry you had to go through that.
Put a clause in your contract regarding printing and indemnifying yourself from any legal action with resulting lost deadlines or printing errors...
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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The Salon Design Tech
My contract does indeed hold me harmless from delays resulting from the client's failure to meet their obligation to deliver materials and/or approvals in a timely manner, but that can always be argued, I suppose, but someone determined to squeeze money from a stone. That's one reason why documenting projects is so important, even down to the date, time, and subject(s) of telephone calls. I had all that on my side. If I hadn't, well, I don't like to think what could have happened. Thanks for the "tea and sympathy."
Mara
You betcha!
I am surprised, though, that their lawyers thought they even had a case after reading that their client agreed to your terms! Very strange indeed. But good of you to keep a CYA file. I always do that too.
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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The Salon Design Tech
Sorry for the duplicate.
Mara
There's your answer. His lawyers never got into it with me, only the owner of the company. I suspect his lawyers talked him out of pursuing his little vendetta once they heard about my evidence. This guy is just a dumb-luck millionaire -- you know the type? Life ain't fair! :-)
Mara
Jeez, yeah I know the type. The type that can't help but slipping on s**t and landing in a big bucket of money. Grrr.
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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The Salon Design Tech
At home I create folders for each client in my Mail mailbox list and just store emails with their attachments there. The only time I get rid of them all is if it's over a year old and I'm pretty sure I'm never going to be working with that client again.
At work we use (prepare to shudder) Lotus Notes (yes, on Macs - it's a pain in the ass of a program). In any case, I do pretty much the same thing... have several folders separated out by the type of work I usually interact with or via specific offices, departments, etc. The Lotus Notes system has some sort of archiving system with it where it pulls anything over 45 days old and puts it in this weird backup archive. Really, it's no different than just not deleting your emails from your Mail program, but I think the archive thing backs up to some mysterious server in our corporate office's netherworld so the main Lotus Notes server doesn't get overwhelmed and bogged down with thousands of emails and attachments.
I used to use Mail. But then I switch my email over to gmail (without losing my address). I now use the gmail interface online exclusively and I think the whole thing is working better for me.
• I don't have to worry about space
• I love the interface and all its add-ons (sharing google documents and such).
• I don't have to sync and my email appears the same way on whatever computer I am on.
• I downloaded the nifty google notifier so my email is more integrated with my computer system. I don't have to log on to see when I get an email and it even shows me the first line of the email so I can decide if its worth checking at that exact moment.
• Mail was a bit slow and unreliable at times for me.
• I can style my google interface to look how I want with my logo and colors.
• Google does this wonderful bundling thing to replied messages (gotta check it out).
• Instead of folders (which allows you only one term for a particular email) it has labels (you can have as many on a message as you want) which is convenient because some emails have more than one way I remember them.
• Because it is owned by google it is always being updated and improved.
My only caveat, I know google saves a copy of every one of my transactions and their legal terms say they are be allowed to give to give to law enforcement officials in an investigation. But since I'm not working for the Columbian drug cartel anymore--I don't have anything to hide.
-T
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I agree about Gmail. Awesome program. Use "Stylish" to add the Globex style for gmail. SWEET.
I also love the 'Archive' mail feature that lets you clean your inbox and keep your mail at the same time. Labeling emails is also very helpful; I use filters quite a bit.
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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The Salon Design Tech
OSX's Mail has been really solid for me since 10.3/Panther. (I'm on Tiger now.) I use it at the day job and at home.
Like KellyR, I have a pile of folders saved by client in Mail on my home iMac. At work, I do the same, but it's a slightly more complex system grouped by project, and there are folders of sub-categories within each top-level folder. I just need to be more consistent about filing things in the folders instead of doing a massive cleaning job that takes an entire afternoon once every couple months.
About once a year, I archive the whole Library/Mail/ folder to DVD, and then from the computer, I selectively trash things from the that I doubt I'll need again.
Also, .Mac has been very useful to me for keeping things the same on both computers. It's not for everyone, but it's been worth it's price for me. We'll see what happens if the rumored "upgrades" to the service come about!