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Outlook add-on for organising emails hierarchically?
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Posted by Franz Grieser
Jul 10, 2020 at 10:22 AM
Ken wrote:
>Thank you for the response. I know that messages are stored in the
>PST/OST files, but since they have a unique URL in the O365 web
>application, I assumed that link was stored with each message, but was
>perhaps just not visible in the desktop client without a bit of extra
>effort. It does seem strange to think that a message would have a
>unique URL, but if Microsoft is hosting, then it might seem to make
>sense as the URL’s seem to be fixed for each message. This is a bit
>above my pay grade as I am not an IT guy, but I found it interesting to
>learn that O365 messages do have URLs.
Till 2017, I wrote a newsletter covering Outlook. One of our readers asked how he could find out the URL of an email. As I couldn’t answer his question, I asked a developer who wrote Outlook add-ins at that time - his answer was that there was no way he could get that info from the PST/OST files.
That was 3 years ago, I do not know if that has changed in the meantime. But I doubt as the PST files from the current Outlook 365 can be still opened in Outlook 2016 - so I guess the PST file structure has not changed.
Just my 2 cents as a non-programmer.
Franz
Posted by Ken
Jul 10, 2020 at 04:15 PM
Franz Grieser wrote:
Ken wrote:
>
>>Thank you for the response. I know that messages are stored in the
>>PST/OST files, but since they have a unique URL in the O365 web
>>application, I assumed that link was stored with each message, but was
>>perhaps just not visible in the desktop client without a bit of extra
>>effort. It does seem strange to think that a message would have a
>>unique URL, but if Microsoft is hosting, then it might seem to make
>>sense as the URL’s seem to be fixed for each message. This is a bit
>>above my pay grade as I am not an IT guy, but I found it interesting to
>>learn that O365 messages do have URLs.
>
>Till 2017, I wrote a newsletter covering Outlook. One of our readers
>asked how he could find out the URL of an email. As I couldn’t answer
>his question, I asked a developer who wrote Outlook add-ins at that time
>- his answer was that there was no way he could get that info from the
>PST/OST files.
>That was 3 years ago, I do not know if that has changed in the meantime.
>But I doubt as the PST files from the current Outlook 365 can be still
>opened in Outlook 2016 - so I guess the PST file structure has not
>changed.
>
>Just my 2 cents as a non-programmer.
>
>Franz
Interesting, and a bit of a small mystery. I usually count on you as one of my Outlook gurus, so if this has you stumped, it may take a bit more sleuthing to better understand. It probably has some simple answer, but then again we are digging under the hood, and anything is possible.
Thanks,
—Ken
Posted by Franz Grieser
Jul 10, 2020 at 05:06 PM
Ken wrote:
>Interesting, and a bit of a small mystery. I usually count on you as
>one of my Outlook gurus, so if this has you stumped, it may take a bit
>more sleuthing to better understand.
Thanks for the guru.
But maybe that’s what they call the twilight of gurus ;-)
Posted by Arnold
Jul 10, 2020 at 08:45 PM
Zoot software maybe able to help, there is a free trial to test your needs.
https://www.zootsoftware.com/#/outlook/
I do not have an Outlook cloud account so unable to test
Posted by Dr Andus
Jul 13, 2020 at 12:47 PM
Thank you all for the suggestions.
For now I’m experimenting with Ultra Recall for this, which I’ve never managed to find a use for before (ConnectedText fulfilled most of my needs).
But it works exactly as what I was looking for: drag and drop an Outlook message item into a tree hierarchy, and be able to organise it further within that hierarchy.
I was also considering reverting to the Light Web Outlook version, but Microsoft has successfully hidden it from me somehow.
I’ve deleted all my cookies etc., still I am unable to find my way back into it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if MS was trying to deliberately wean users from it. Sadly the Light version was the only one with individualised URLs for each message. Oh, well…
@Leib
It doesn’t look like I need a hack (unless I’m misunderstanding what you meant). UR seems to display the Outlook message automatically.
Thanks for the tip in any case.
Leib Moscovitz wrote:
There is a PIM that lets you do this - Ultrarecall; you can drag and
>drop Outlook emails into UR and then organize them hierarchically or
>however you wish.
>
>There is even a hack which enables you to display Outlook emails
>internally in UR, and then, again, you can drag them into UR and
>manipulate them as you see fit.