We're calling on all EU-based Mozillians with iOS or iPadOS devices to help us monitor Apple’s new browser choice screens. Join the effort to hold Big Tech to account!

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How searchable are TBird archives?

  • 1 reply
  • 2 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Wayne Mery

more options

Does archiving limit searchability of older messages? If so, to what extent?

Details: My general setup: mac running Sierra, backup with Time Machine. I use POP for all incoming email and remove it from server when fetched.

I sort incoming email into a large number of folders, but over time my inbox folder, sent folder and a couple of other folders related to what I do have become quite large (hundreds of MB's). Up to now I have eschewed the use of archiving because I rely heavily on searches to find past correspondence and sometimes I need to reach deep into the past.

Lately I've noticed that my hourly Time Machine backups are much larger than I expected and I've come to realize that the few mailbox folders that contain hundreds of MB's of messages are the probable culprits. So ... I'm thinking archiving will help me mitigate the problem of huge backups.

But I fear that if I archive, I won't have the same ability to conveniently search archived folders using the same facilities TBird provides to search unarchived (more recent) messages in folders.

Does archiving limit searchability of older messages? If so, to what extent? Details: My general setup: mac running Sierra, backup with Time Machine. I use POP for all incoming email and remove it from server when fetched. I sort incoming email into a large number of folders, but over time my inbox folder, sent folder and a couple of other folders related to what I do have become quite large (hundreds of MB's). Up to now I have eschewed the use of archiving because I rely heavily on searches to find past correspondence and sometimes I need to reach deep into the past. Lately I've noticed that my hourly Time Machine backups are much larger than I expected and I've come to realize that the few mailbox folders that contain hundreds of MB's of messages are the probable culprits. So ... I'm thinking archiving will help me mitigate the problem of huge backups. But I fear that if I archive, I won't have the same ability to conveniently search archived folders using the same facilities TBird provides to search unarchived (more recent) messages in folders.

Modified by David Collins

Chosen solution

Archiving a message should not affect its searchability

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (1)

more options

Chosen Solution

Archiving a message should not affect its searchability