A recent post on the Notes 8.5 Discussion Forum got me to thinking. Somebody was using a local archive to remove older messages from their mail file and was running into a problem that many people eventually find when they've been using Notes for awhile. This person had a folder that he no longer used, and all the messages from that folder had been archived, but he found that when he deleted it from his mail file, it was deleted from his archive as well.
Let me take a minute to explain this a little more clearly. A lot of us use folders as a way to file our messages so that we can find them more easily at a later time. For example, I might be working on a project and want to keep track of all of my communication about it, so I create a folder with the project name. Once the project is over, I stop adding to the folder. Eventually, the emails get old enough such that they are moved to my local archive. At that time, I have a folder in my mail file with nothing in it. Naturally, I want to delete the unused folder, making my mail file easier to navigate. Problem is, when I do this, the folder gets deleted from my archive, as well. I go to look for the messages associated with the older project, and I can't find them in my archive.
To solve this problem, it helps to think about how Notes gets information from one place to another. Your local archive is, essentially, a special kind of replica of your mail file. To keep deletions from replicating, we just need to edit the replication settings. If a light bulb just went off over your head, great! You're good to go. If you're thinking, "What the heck is replication?", read on. This is really pretty easy. Here are the steps:
1. In order to get to the replication settings for your archive, you need to make that the active application, so open up your archive.
2. Choose File > Replication > Options for this Application....
3. It's very important to make sure that you are in the setting for your archive (and not your mail file). You can see that you are from the title bar of the dialog box.
4. Once you've determined that you're in the setting for your archive, click on the Advanced tab on the left. You should then see something like the picture above.
5. Uncheck the box in front of the word Deletions, at the bottom.
6. Click OK.
This change will keep deletions from coming over to your archive, meaning that when you delete a folder in your mail file, it won't be deleted in your archive. "But Dwight," you say, "Won't that keep all deletions from coming over?". Yes it will, but the beauty of this being your archive, is that documents that you delete in your mail file have not yet been moved to your archive and, therefore, are unaffected. Give it a try and clean all of those unused folders from your mail file.
Dwight Morse | 24 April 2009 12:24:25 AM ET | | Comments (26)
