43 Folders

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43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

GUI - Grand Unified Interface

I'm on a quest for the Grand Unified Interface. I have a detailed hierarchy in the Finder, with a folder for each project, and each project folder parked in the appropriate Active, On Hold, etc. parent folder. A project folder can contain anything from text files, to OmniOutlines, to image files, to FileMaker databases. But the one thing it cannot contain is email. Currently, there is a duplicate project hierarchy in my mailbox list in Mail. During my weekly review, I spend a great deal of time syncing the project data in Mail with the project data in the Finder. I've tried saving copies of email messages into the appropriate project folders in the Finder, but must still keep the originals in Mail in order to facilitate ongoing conversation. I've tried keeping everything in Mail, but that's cumbersome. Email programs are not designed to be GTD managers. I've tried DevonThink, but it doesn't handle email very well, and requires me to launch FileMaker and OmniOutliner in order to work those files. If I'm going to launch independent apps, I might as well use the Finder. I'm looking for a Finder with a tightly integrated email capability. Has anyone run across this holy grail?

dp

shaun's picture

Spotlight is actually smart enough...

Spotlight is actually smart enough to see the subjects of e-mail messages. You can create a smart folder that searches e-mail messages as well as files (you need to edit the raw query to do this), and it will then give you multiple categories like in the Spotlight search window.

The only problem here is that it initially displays the subject names, *then* switches to showing file names when the search is complete. If I could figure out how to stop this behavior I would solve this problem for myself (I don't care about search speed).

Have you tried Entourage, by any chance?

 
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