I spend soooooooooooooo much time filing emails by hand, there has to be
a bter way.

What I would liek to do is this:

FMP server 8 on OS X 10.3.9
FMP and mail.app on client computers 10.3.9

FMP has a "contacts database", records have fields for "email adress"
and "mailbox name"

What I would like is something that will do this:
for selected emails in mail.app
match "from" address to "email address" in contacts databse
get related "mailbox name" for that record
move email to mailbox of that name


Would anyone care to suggest how i might do this?

many thanks

In article <H--dnWg2eddIct3bnZ2dnUVZ8vydnZ2d (AT) eclipse (DOT) net.uk>,
TheMekon <SpamBeGone (AT) nospam (DOT) com> wrote:

Since both applications support AppleScript, that would seem to be a
good place to start.

--
Tom Stiller

PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3
7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF

In article <tomstiller-788C68.18365508052007 (AT) comcast (DOT) dca.giganews.com>,
Tom Stiller <tomstiller (AT) comcast (DOT) net> wrote:

The words "sledgehammer" and "walnut" spring to mind here. )

It would be much easier, and quicker, to set-up separate email
addresses (or aliases), have people send emails to the appropriate
address and then use the Rules in Mail to sort the incoming mail
according to what email address they were sent to.
eg.
Instead of everyone sending emails to JoeBloggs (AT) MyISP (DOT) com
they could send to:
AGMReplies (AT) MyISP (DOT) com
SeminarReplies (AT) MyISP (DOT) com
TVReviews (AT) MyISP (DOT) com
etc.

Many ISP and website hosting services offer unlimited aliases these
days.

Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

Tom Stiller wrote:
But one does know enough about it to know that an evening playing with
it isn't going to be enough........

Helpful Harry wrote:

Thanks but no. I think I need to explaain more: The contacts in
question are external contacts, my contacts DB must obviously have the
real email addresses in. Aliases aren't relevant. The number of
contacts / email addresses to be handled is perpetually increasing day
by day.

Anything based on rules won't do (that's what I do now). The current
procedure is:

1. we get a new customer
2. we create a record for them in the contacts DB
3. we create a mailbox for them
4. we create a mail rule to file outgoing and incoming mail in the
appropriate mailbox.

This is far too much trouble. I want to script numbers 3 and 4 so that
they are done for me automatically when I do number 2. But I don't know
enough Applescript and am wondering if anyone has done anything similar
and can advise.

Thanks

In article <OqCdnUZV2pO1WNzbnZ2dnUVZ8qjinZ2d (AT) eclipse (DOT) net.uk>,
TheMekon <No.Mail (AT) please (DOT) com> wrote:

One should have more faith in one's ability. And one should probably ask
in alt.comp.lang.applescript if one needs help along those lines. But to
get you started, you can invoke something like this from a Mail rule.


using terms from application "Mail"
on perform mail action with messages theMessageList
repeat with theMessage in theMessageList
tell application "Mail"
set theSender to extract name from (sender of theMessage)
-- etc
end tell
tell application "FileMaker Pro"
set theRecord to make new record
set cell "Sender" of theRecord to theSender
-- etc
end tell
end repeat
end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from

Alternatively it ccan be invoked from Mail's script menu at need and
will be given a list of the selected messages in theMessageList.

If you want to invoke it from outside Mail, you can just ask the Mail
app for it's selection ...

on run
tell application Mail to set theMessageList to selection
-- and so on
end run

In article <-KKdnZJE-9oFW9zbnZ2dnUVZ8tWnnZ2d (AT) eclipse (DOT) net.uk>, TheMekon
<No.Mail (AT) please (DOT) com> wrote:

Don't create a rule for each customer - having a separate folder in
Mail for each customer would be a nightmare anyway.

Create a separate email address / alias of YOUR email address that
groups of customers send TO (not from) and then have a rule in Mail
that moves the incoming message to the appropriate group folder.

For example, instead of having all customers sending emails to
sales (AT) mycompany (DOT) com you create specialised email addresses for
different groupings,
eg. perhaps:
toysales (AT) MyCompany (DOT) com
comicsales (AT) MyCompany (DOT) com
luxurycarsales (AT) MyCompany (DOT) com
etc.


If you really must use a separate mailbox, then you're probably better
off with Smart Mailboxes which would replace steps 3 and 4 with a
single step.

3(new). Create Smart Mailbox that grabs all emails to / from
the same email address.



Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)