Joël de Bruijn

  • 1 Post
  • 106 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • I don’t know.

    • I don’t need formatting but it doesn’t get in the way either. So I am not bothered by it.
    • Also pdf and especially PDF/A standard is widely used for archiving and compliance regulation concerning archival and preservation.
    • If you want text the same tactic goes: just export in bulk to txt instead of pdf

    My main point is: Why would you want a mail specific stack of hosting, storage, indexing and frontends? If it’s all plain text anyway so the regular storage solutions for files come a long way.

    There is an entire industry (which has its own disadvantages) to get communication artefacts out of those systems and put it in document management systems or other forms of file based archival.


  • I had roughly the same goals ( archive search 2 decades of mail) but approached it completely different: I export every mail to PDF with a strict naming convention.

    • Backend: No mailserver, just storage and backup for files.
    • Search: based on filenames FSearch and Void tools Everything. I could use local indexing on pdf content.
    • Frontend: a pdf viewer.








  • My understanding is roughly, for example:

    • Microsoft Word desktop application: not SAAS.
    • Microsoft Word online: SAAS (just like any other service accessible by browser but not a “localhost”)
    • Onedrive: SAAS, storage with local explorer integration.
    • Exchange server on prem: not SAAS, increasingly diffucult to do.
    • Exchange server by MS: SAAS
    • Microsoft Outlook Classic for desktop: not SAAS.
    • Microsoft Teams for desktop: SAAS although local install but its just another frontend instead of browser.
    • Office365: SAAS but really a container for every tool in the MS online toolbox together.

    Some caveats: Word handles spellchecker in their cloud and clippy 2024 (Copilot) integration blurs the line.