The Entourage User's WebLog

There was recently a post on the newsgroups about some poor soul who couldn't start Entourage because they had 270,000 emails in the Inbox. This was primarily due to a deluge of Spam, at the rate of about 5,000 per day. Still that means they had left things for about two months before they had dealt with anything. While his experience may be extremely extreme, I am constantly surprised how few people make any great effort to keep their mail organised.

Me? I'm at the opposite end of the scale. I take it as a personal affront if any mail hits the inbox, without being intercepted and re-filed before it gets there. Lucky for me that Entourage has 3 built in methods to help you organise things easily. These are the Mailing List Manager (MLM), the Junk Mail Filter (JMF) and Mail Rules (no acronym for that one!). What's more, that is the order in which they operate, which will shortly become a significant piece of information.

Let's look at each of these in some greater detail...

The Mailing List Manager

This is only of any use if you make use of mailing lists, such as the Entourage:Mac mailing list, TidBITS, Apple Lists or any one of about a million different public or private lists out there.

If you do subscribe to a mailing list (assuming that list is served by a dedicated List Server - most of them are), there is a very easy way to organise the mail coming from that list. Simply select any mail from the list server, and from the 'Tools' menu, select 'Mailing List Manager'. A small window will open up listing all you MLM entries in there. First time you do this the window is empty. Simply click on the 'new' button in the small toolbar at the top of the window, and a new window opens, which should be already filled in with the lists details. It should look something like this:
I have added the check in the box to move the list mail to a dedicated folder and also to move any messages I send to the list to that same folder. I don't automatically set a category for list mail (I use categories in other ways, which I may blog about another day). In the simplest form, that's all you need to do. Now, any list mail will automatically be moved to the folder you selected as it arrives - already, with just that one mouse-click, you have started to diminish the load on your inbox and get your email sorted out!

However, you can go further. Click into the 'Advanced' tab in that window, and see these options (on the right)
You can see that I haven't used many of these options, and most people probably never will. let's explore them, however. Alternate address is used if messages from the list can come from another address as well - this sometimes happens with a moderated list when some messages intercepted by the moderator come from their address instead of the main list address, but such situations are few and far between. the admin address seems to be reminder only at this time - maybe the MacBU are intending to put in auto-subscribe/unsubscribe functionality into Entourage at some point in the future. certainly nothing you put into that field has any effect at the moment.

I can't think why you would want to mark messages as read when they arrive, but apparently some people do. the option is there if you are one of them. Some lists insist on a prefix to subjects to/from the list. this will automatically add them. Personally, I hate them. Rules & list messages can be a complex issue. I suspect that most people who are using the MLM to file list messages will not want any rules to run on list messages and muck things up.

'Delete Copies' is handy for some people. They have sent a message to the list, and when the message is distributed most lists will send a copy to all subscribers _including_ the sender. if you don't want copies of your own messages coming back to you, just check this box. they'll be deleted before you see them.

Do you know about Digests? Most Mailing Lists give you the option of either receiving every message sent through the list as an individual email, or for batches of messages to be collected up into a single digest that is sent out once or twice a day 9or less frequently for low volume lists). If you have opted to receive digests, many of these can be automatically burst into individual messages as they arrive with the next set of option. this doesn't work for every type of message digest though - there are different digest formats. However, it will work with digests from modern list servers, which covers 90% or more of mailing lists.

Then, we have an option to specify an applescript to run on mailing list messages. this opens up a whole range of possibilities! However, the most common use I make of this option is to change the account of list messages, as I get some list traffic in to an alias account whose mail is redirected to one of my real accounts. If I forget, and just 'reply' to one of these messages without setting the correct account for the reply, I will get a bounce-back from the mailing list server who will refuse to deliver my mail because it came from an email address that was not subscribed to the list.

Finally, we have options for the reply behaviour. List can be set up so you r replies go back to the list (to be circulated to all subscribers) or to go back to the sender of the message you are replying to. Lists seem to be fairly evenly split between these two options. this setting in the MLM gives YOU the power to choose what you want to happen, rather than the Listmom (the person who runs the mailing list is invariably known as 'mom').

As you can see, the MLM is a powerful tool for organising list mail as it arrives AND for helping you keep your replies organised as well. Now all you list mail is conveniently organised, lets move on to...

The Junk Mail Filter

Spam (Unsolicited Commercial Email or UCE) is the scourge of the internet. Everyone gets spammed at some time (unfortunately). it is a penalty we have to pay to use email.I have a variety of strategies i use to try and keep my spam load to reasonable proportions (maybe another subject for a future blog entry), but no matter what, some spam always finds it's way to me and my Entourage. Again, there is a very useful tool for handling spam. From the 'Tools' menu (again), select 'junk E-mail Protection...' (these instruction apply to Entourage 2004 - in vX it was called 'Junk Mail Filter...' and some of the option I will describe were different or missing).

Here we have the first window for the JMF settings. It's worth pointing out once again that the JMF runs on messages AFTER they have been passed through any MLM entries you have, so Mailing list traffic should never be marked as spam. The four levels are fairly self explanatory. The top level (Exclusive) is really severe, and not really suitable for anyone who is likely to get mail from unexpected addresses. This includes just about anyone using email for business purposes. It could be disastrous for a new customer's email enquiry to be consigned to a junk mail folder just because you hadn't got their email address in your address book. I have found that 'High' is pretty good for me, but, as I said earlier, I have lots of MLM entries and mail rules to handle mail that can be identified, and so avoids the JMF. Mail that the JMF identifies as spam will be moved to the Junk e-mail folder for that account. It won't be automatically deleted before you can check it, so you needn't worry about false positives ('good' mail that is incorrectly marked as spam).

The only other option available in this window is to automatically delete mail from the Junk E-mail Folder after a certain length of time. i settle on 30 days a a good value here - it means I will certainly check the mail in the Junk folder before it gets deleted (I tend to check about every other day) but it will get deleted before too much builds up. If only the poor poster I mentioned at the top of this entry had selected such an entry - he would never have reached the stage at which Entourage refused to open.

Now switch to the 'safe Domains' pane. Here you can define whole domains that are known to be safe. This way, I will never, according to the setting I have in there, have mail marked from btyahoo, symantec etc marked as spam. You odn't have to type the domains into here - if a good mail is ever marked as spam, you can always use the 'not spam' button in the toolbar that appears when a junk mail is selected. This will give you several options - to add the sender to your address book (address book contacts are NEVER marked as spam), to create an MLM entry, to add the domain to the list in this window, or to do nothing else, just 'unjunk' that message alone.

OK, now we have dealt with mail from mailing lists and spam. Let's sort out all the other stuff that comes in...

Mail Rules

Once again, go to the 'Tools' menu and this time select 'rules'. First thing to notice is that there are six different types of mail rule:

To my mind, this is a weakness in Entourage. There is no way to transfer rules from one type of account to another. It must surely be a common occurrence that you want mail from the same person to be handled in the same way, no matter which email address of yours they send their messages to? however, the developers have taken the decision to segregate all the different types of account. There is some justification for this, as not all selection criteria for rules is applicable to all types of account - for example, IMAP messages may only have had the headers downloaded when the rule is applied (this is the default behaviour)

Anyway, this behaviour isn't likely to change in the near future, so we'll just have to live with it. Let's make a new rule. Click on the 'New' button:

Here's new Rule window. It's divided into roughly 4 regions. The first of these is the name of the rule. Call it anything you want, it won't affect how the rule works, so choose a name that will still mean something to you in five years time!

Next we come to the Selection Criteria. You can have lots of criteria, even though there is only one shown by default in a new rule window. The 'execute' pop-up menu determines how these criteria work - either messages that match ALL the criteria will be acted on by the rule, or messages that match ANY ONE of the criteria. So, you can set it so either any messages from 'Fred' OR from 'Bill' will be acted on, or it could be just messages from 'Fred' AND with "photo" in the subject will be acted on.

Now you can set the criteria. Where the pop-up says 'all messages', click on the menu item, and see what options are available. these will vary depending on the type of mail account. When you have selected something other than 'all messages' (which is self explanatory) you are likely to get one or two other settings in the criteria line - usually a comparison operator and a value field, like this:

Add as many criteria as you like. Simply keep clicking on the 'Add Criterion' button above the first line and setting the options appropriately. When you have your selection criteria set up, move on the move on to the next section - the actions. Two are provided as examples, but again, many more are available. You can add to these two, or delete from the list with the 'Add' & 'Remove' buttons. You need to remember that the actions take place in the order you have set them up, so if you copy a message to a new location before you assign a category, the copy will not have that category set. The exception to this is an applescript execution - this is passed off to a different thread, and can take place independently from other actions on the message - either before them or after them.

Finally we come to the last section - what I'll call the rule preferences. These are the last two check boxes in the window. The first one should be checked if you are happy that this rule will be all you need to do with a message - you can then check this box and after this rule has handled a message it will not be passed on to other rules to check against their criteria. All processing is finished. If your rule moves a message to different folder, this option will be checked and greyed out. You cannot pass the message on to other rules if it has been moved. This is unfortunately a limitation caused partly by Entourages mail system and partly by mail standards, but it means that a message move must be arranged to be the last rule you want to run on a message. Finally we come to the 'Enabled' check box. If this box is checked (and it is repeated in the list of rules in the Rules window) then any messages that get past the MLM and the JMF and any preceding rules will be checked against the criteria of this rule. If the box is unchecked, the rule will not run automatically as messages arrive, but can be run against a bunch of selected messaged using the 'apply rule' menu item in the 'Message' menu or the contextual menu you get if you control-click (right-click) on a message. This can be useful on occasions, when you want to automate a sequence of operations, but want to apply them only to messages _you_ select. Set up a rule with the selection criterion 'All Messages', set the actions to your chosen sequence of operations, and uncheck the 'Active' button. You can now run these actions simply by selecting some messages and manually running the rule as described above.

Hopefully, you will now have a a bunch of MLM entries, the JMF set up and a collection of rules as well. All your mail will be filtered into different mail folders as it arrives. Apart from keeping stuff nice and organised (which helps when you are looking for that particular message off Auntie Mabel) it means that _you_ can be more organised and can prioritise the way ion which you read your maIL - mail from your boss can be checked before anything else, because it will all be in the one place, and easily identified because his folder will be highlighted in bold whenever these is unread mail in it.

This was a longer post than normal, but I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave you comments by using the links below. I try to answer all comments, and love to hear from you.

This has been raised on the newsgroups a couple of times this week, and is a recurring theme - a FAQ in fact!

Before I tell you how to request one and to automate responses to them, let me say that they can be worse than useless! When you request a Return Receipt (or, in the more up to date version, a Disposition Notification Request) you are reliant on the request being honoured by the receiving party. Outside of the corporate world such support is almost non-existent. Even within corporations support is patchy at best. In setting up responses, things are a little better in that you are now in control. The combination of rule and script I describe later will generate a response to a DNR request, but will not automatically send it. A reply will be drafted and the reply window left open for you to send or discard as you see fit - you lose no control or privacy through following the methods laid out here.

Sending a DNR

In order to request a DNR, a special header must be inserted into the message headers. Entourage does allow the insertion of additional headers, but only on an account wide basis.

Open the account for editing (ToolsAccounts; then select the account & click on Edit). Under the 'Options' tab, second item down is 'Additional Headers'. In the 'Header' column enter "Disposition-Notification-To" (without the quotes); and in the 'value' column enter your email address. DNRs will now be sent out with every message from this account.

If you have only an occasional need to do this on a message by message basis, duplicate your account and add the header to the new account only. Make sure that this account is NOT included in any mail checking schedules, but that mail from this account IS sent with every send. Now, to include the return-receipt, simply change the account of a message to this ‘DNR’ account with the pop-up menu that appears next to the 'from' header in a draft message window when you have more than one account defined.

Responding to mail received with a DNR Request

Responding to a request needs a combination of a rule and a script. The rule to detect the DNR header in incoming mail, the script to generate the reply.
First step: download the script. Save it in the 'Entourage Script Menu Items' folder inside the Microsoft User Data Folder that is in your Documents folder (the script could go anywhere at all, but it is easiest to put it in there).
Next, create a rule: From the Tools menu, select 'Rules'. Select the correct pane for your account type - rules for POP, IMAP, Hotmail, Exchange, News and outgoing mail are all segregated. You could create this rule in any of the first 4 types - DNRs for News and outgoing mail do not make any sense. Create a new rule and configure it in the following manner:

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Note that the text in the "Specific Header" box says 'Disposition-Notification-To', the checkbox to prevent additional rules running is UNCHECKED (or non of your other rules would work). This rule needs to be placed at the top of your list of rules, so it runs before any other rule. Under the 'Action' setting, click on the 'Script...' button and navigate to the 'Generate Return Receipt v1.1' script you just downloaded and installed.

That's it - the system isn't perfect, because it relies on other people having their systems configured in a way that will work with you, and that's an unreliable situation at best. Still, it does at least restore some of the functionality that corporate users (especially users of Outlook/Exchange) have become used to having around.

Please feel free to leave a comment using the links below - comments on this article or requests for future articles are always welcome and will be responded to where appropriate.

On the first day of MacWorld, the Mac version of Google Earth was finally released.

Anyone who has seen this app running in Windows can't fail to have been impressed, and the mac version is just as good

However, one thing ticked me off. The 'mail' button (used to send location files and images via email) is hard-wired to Apple's Mail.app. I use Entourage. That was annoying.

In fact, it ticked me off so much that I worked out a little hack for it. Here's how to modify the app so that it uses Entourage as it's mail client instead of mail.app:

1. Right-click on the Google Earth.app icon and select 'show package contents'
2. 
   
3. Look in Contents/Resources and find this file: emailplacemark.scpt
4. 
   
5. Option drag it to the desktop to make a copy there, and open it in a text editor (it may not open in a script editor)
   
6. Replace the text of the script with this text:
   
   tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
activate
try
set theSubject to "%1"
set theBody to "%2"
set theAttachments to {%3}
set myMessage to make new outgoing message ¬
     with properties {subject:theSubject, content:theBody}
tell myMessage
repeat with fileInfo in theAttachments
make new attachment at end with properties ¬
     {file: alias (posix file (get filename of fileInfo))}
end repeat
end tell
open mymessage
end try
end tell
(Download the file from here, if you like)
   
   
7. Rename the original script as emailplacemarkORIGINAL.scpt, or something like it (so you can easily restore the file if anything goes wrong) and copy your modified script back in to the Resources folder.

Google Earth will now send locations (and images) via entourage.

There's another version of this same script in the folder Google Earth.app/Contents/MacOS/kvw/ for some reason, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

Please post any comments or requests you may have by following the 'Comment' link below. I do try to answer all comments I receive

I've mentioned before that the Microsoft Public Newsgroups are the best places to get freindly help when things aren't running weel, or just to learn more about the programmes you are interested in.

Many of the questions posted in the newsgroups are answered by Microsoft MVPs - these are volunteers, not employees of Microsoft, but awarded MVP recognition for their voluntary contributions to the microsoft community and their help to users of Microsoft Products.

You can see a brief resumé of the Macintosh MVPs on the Mactopia web site

This is the full transcript of Roz Ho's talk at the Macworld '06 Keynote speech:

"Thanks Steve – I seem to have misplaced my white suit this morning! Still, white was never my colour, so that's ok.

It's a pleasure to be onstage again and to be part of all the exciting things coming out of MacWorld today.

I'm happy to say that the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit is on track to deliver Universal Binaries of Office and Messenger, and we've made a lot of progress already. We've worked closely together with Apple's Engineering team to make sure that we have the tools we need to deliver great new versions of Office for mac, but in the meantime we've also worked together to make sure that current versions of Office run well in Rosetta. Our dedication to the platform and to you our customers, is evidenced by our ongoing product update and today is no exception. We'll be shipping several updates to our suites very soon to satisfy user requests and to provide additional support for current Apple technologies.

We'll be adding Sync Services to allow data syncing between hand held devices and Entourage. We're putting the finishing touches on smart card and spotlight support for Entourage. We're also providing... [applause] - I said "satisfy many user requests, I guess that was the, er..., evidence.

We're also shipping another update to Messenger 5.

All of these updates will be available via free download from our website in March.

Throughout the end of January, we're partnering with Apple to provide our customers around the world with up to 50% off Office when you buy a new mac. There's never been a better time to upgrade your machine and your office.

Just in case all of that wasn't proof enough of our commitment, we're marking another milestone in our relationship with Apple. We're formalising our commitment to this platform and to our customers with an official agreement that we continue shipping new versions of office for Mac for a minimum of five years.

[Loud applause and cheering]

I said many times that Office for Mac is an incredibly successful product. 2005 was the best year for MacBu's Business. This official commitment should leave no doubt in your mind that we're here to stay and we're in it for the long term."

Another five years - that's at least two major office updates

Now thats Great news.

At Macworld SanFrancisco earlier today, Roz Ho (General Manager of Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit) shared the stage with Steve Jobs and promised Entourage users great new features!

Microsoft are to release an update to entourage by March that will feature Spotlight Searching, Sync Services Integration and Smart card Support. Woohoo!

The Keynote can be watched here. If that links moves in the next few days, start from here. Roz can be seen about 1 hour and 12 minutes into the presentation.

A cry of horror that we hear occasionally - you just started Entourage and all you got was a welcome email from Microsoft - 2 years of emails, hundreds of contacts, all the calendar data has just disappeared! What do you do?

Well first thing is to sit down, take a deep breath and (in the words of the infamous book) "Don't Panic"! The odds are in favour of your data being recovered.

Take a long think - have you done anything unusual with your computer recently? Upgrades the OS? Run a bunch of disk tests? Run a 'clean up' utility? Logged on as a different user? That last one is easy to fix, but it's surprising how many people it catches out.

The main reason for a problem like this is that Entourage could not find it's database when it started up, so it created a new one. This confuses a lot of people, because when you ask them if the database is in place they say "of course it is", not realising that the one they are looking at is the newly created one.


So, where does Entourage store it's data? In your main Documents folder, there will be a folder called "Microsoft User Data" (commonly called the MUD folder). All of the data for Entourage and other office apps is stored in here. Within the MUD folder can be several other folders, amongst which is the "Office 2004 Identities" folder. If you are running another version of Office, the folder will be named slightly differently, of course. Inside that folder will be a folder for each identity you have set up in Entourage. The default identity is simply called "Main Identity" and most people never change that name or create another. Finally, within the Identity folder we come to your data files - there will normally be at least four files in the identity folder, 'Database', 'Mailing Lists', 'Rules' and 'Signatures'. There may be more than this, or fewer, depending on how you use Entourage. Database will always be there.

If you have suddenly lost all your data, the first thing to check is that the correct files are in the right paths. File paths and names are critical - if you have renamed the MUD folder (or one of it's sub-folders) this will cause Entourage to lose it's place. If you have moved anything out of the correct path Entourage will recreate empty folders in the correct path. In the example shown above, the identity 'Test' has a size of 'only' 18mb. This is a empty database! This is what you will see if a new database has been created on Entourage startup. The 18mb is occupied by index tables and other database overheads. If you can see you own identity there, looking somewhat larger than 18mb and you can see another, smaller identity in there as well, then it may be that entourage simply picked the wrong one to start up with. This can be due to lost or damaged preference files. In Entourage, simply choose 'Switch Identity...' from the 'Entourage' menu and you should see your correct identity listed there for you to select.

If the right files are not in place, you need to search your disk to try and find them. Have you moved them in a 'tidy up'? has a disk utility or backup programme shifted things around? Search first for "Microsoft User Data", making sure you search the entire disk. If that finds nothing it could be that the folder has been renamed. Search instead for 'Database' which will potentially generate far more hits as it is a common enough file name. Include invisible files in your search - Disk directory problems can cause the system to move 'lost' files to an invisible folder at the root level of the disk during the start-up disk checks. Make sure you identify the right files by examining their enclosing folders if you get hits on 'Database'. If you can identify the right folders, quit all office apps and replace the empty MUD folder with the correct files, log out & back in again and then restart entourage. Hopefully everything will be back to normal again.

If you have searched the disk for the MUD folder and the database files and still found nothing there is one more possibility. Some versions of Norton/Symantec Anti-Virus programmes (and maybe other similar utilities) could identify a virus within the database (quite legitimately - you may have received an infected email at some point) and would either quarantine, delete or attempt to repair the infected file - in this case, the entire Database file! Any attempted repair could have caused irreparable damage to the database (this is why I never have these utilities set to do anything other than alert me to the existence of a potential problem). If the Database file has been quarantined, it may be a simple matter to release it, and replace the newly generated file with your original. Again, quit all apps first, and log out & back in again afterwards (this is necessary to force the system to release any preference or data files that it may be holding open, potentially pointing at the wrong database!).

If you've tried all that and still not recovered you data you may be out of luck. Best thing to do is ask for assistance on the newsgroups (see this blog entry for details) where you can fully describe you unique circumstances.

Please feel free to comment on this article using the links below. I'll try to answer any questions you raise.

Confusion often arises about the contents of the left hand column in an Entourage 'Browser' window - the column that contains the folder listings.


Looking something like the image on the left, several items appear in there, and their differences are not always immediately apparent.

At the top of the list should be an item titled "Folders on My Computer". This is intended to be self explanatory. It is the local store for mail that is downloaded to your copy of Entourage. Normally such mail comes from POP mail accounts, where the mail is deleted from the server after receipt by Entourage, but there are exceptions to this generality. In here, you will find your local Inbox, Outbox etc. Six items a created there by default: Inbox, Drafts, Outbox, Sent Items, Deleted Items and Junk E-mail. You can create as many folders as you like under the 'Folders on My Computer' heading. Alternatively, you can create a full hierarchy almost as many levels deep as you need of the default folders or any folders you have created.

After the "Folders on My Computer" heading, you will have an apparently randomly sorted list of your on-line mail accounts. This includes IMAP, Exchange & Hotmail accounts. These have different icons to show what sort of accounts they are. In my example, the Mac.Com & MVPS.ORG accounts are IMAP, the Exchange & Hotmail accounts identify themselves. Each of these accounts will include its own default folders, normally Inbox, Outbox, Sent Items and Deleted Items as a minimum. These folders hold the local cache of messages that are on the server, so you can still read and reply to the messages even when you are off-line (you may need to change the account settings to download the full messages instead of just message headers when connected though).

Next, after all the mail accounts appear the News accounts. Entourage is a useful, if somewhat basic, Newsgroup client as well as a mail client. The Microsoft News Server is configured by default, but you can add as many of your own as you like. Your ISP will normally provide access to at least one news server. It is worth setting up the default Microsoft News Server to access the Mac Groups - click on the news server icon (first time you do this, you will have to download the full newsgroup list, which may take a few minutes). Then, type 'public.mac' into the little filter window at top right of the screen:

You should be rewarded by a much reduced list of newsgroups relevant to the macintosh platform. Select the item for 'microsoft.public.mac.entourage' and click the 'Subscribe' button. This newsgroup will now appear as a sub-item of the Microsoft News Server icon in the folder listing and you can access messages in that group at any time by selecting that item. Very useful for quick and easy access to expert help and assistance!

Anyway, back on track...

There's one more item in the listing after the Newsgroups - "Mail Views". In earlier versions of Entourage this item used to be called "Custom Views". These are like saved 'Advanced Find' windows. A feature that predates Mail.App's 'Smart Folders' and works in similar ways. A few default 'mail views' are set up by default, but you can soon set up some more of your own. The beauty of these views is that they update in real time. So, if you open on in its own window (double-click on the entry in the list), even though it may take a few minutes to search the entire mail database for matches initially, it will automatically stay up to date as new mail matches the criteria you set up. For example, open a view that searches for mail that arrived 'Today', and new mail will be added as it arrived. this can be a useful view to keep open when you have lots of mail arriving which is usually sorted into different folders as it arrives - it acts as a central summary off all the day's mail.

That's all for today, perhaps I'll do a full article on newsgroups soon. Please pass your comments via the links below, and feel free to request articles if there's something you want me to write about.