Saving PMs

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  • Mario
    Full Member
    • Aug 2020
    • 572
    #1

    Saving PMs

    Greetings!

    I’m receiving some really helpful PMs from other posters regarding either helpful websites, or recordings, or other reading material (especially concerning Beethoven), which are proving really useful. I do not want to lose them, or delete them accidentally.

    Is there any way I can save these PMs on my PC without having to copy and paste?

    Thanks,

    Mario

    (Sorry if this has been posted before)
    Tags: None
  • Pulcinella
    Host
    • Feb 2014
    • 11094
    #2
    Mario

    If you go into your account settings, you should find this option:

    Email Notification of New Private Messages:
    Receive Email Notification of new Private Messages
    Don't receive Email Notification of new Private Messages
    The forum can send a message to your email address to inform you when someone sends you a private message.

    If you click 'Receive' then you will get an email which contains the message (so it's more than just notification).
    So at least the messages go into your mail inbox, and you can create a folder there.

    There may be other tricks that I'm not aware of!

    Comment

    • Leinster Lass
      Banned
      • Oct 2020
      • 1099
      #3
      Originally posted by Pulcinella View Post
      Mario

      If you go into your account settings, you should find this option:

      Email Notification of New Private Messages:
      Receive Email Notification of new Private Messages
      Don't receive Email Notification of new Private Messages
      The forum can send a message to your email address to inform you when someone sends you a private message.

      If you click 'Receive' then you will get an email which contains the message (so it's more than just notification).
      So at least the messages go into your mail inbox, and you can create a folder there.

      There may be other tricks that I'm not aware of!
      Mario - thank you for your question - Pulcinella - thank you for your answer. Very useful tip!

      Comment

      • Dave2002
        Full Member
        • Dec 2010
        • 18039
        #4
        It is possible to save PMs as CSVs, XML and as plain text. This is not a perfect solution perhaps, but often good enough. Select the PMs (or all of them) using the boxes at the right of each PM in the list, then go down to the bottom, and apply the procedure which appears in the menu which can be accessed from there. Click on the Selected Messages button to access the menu.

        I’m not sure if it would be reasonable or practical to ask the admins here if the number of saved PMs could be increased - say from 200 to 1000 or more. That might be helpful to some people, but over time the problem of storing old PMs would come back again.

        Comment

        • Pulcinella
          Host
          • Feb 2014
          • 11094
          #5
          Originally posted by Leinster Lass View Post
          Mario - thank you for your question - Pulcinella - thank you for your answer. Very useful tip!
          Of course this tip is no help to Mario with respect to the messages he has already received!

          Dave's method sounds like it would enable folders/files to be created outside your mail system, which may be preferable in general, and it is certainly an alternative way of keeping messages already received but only in the PM system.

          Comment

          • french frank
            Administrator/Moderator
            • Feb 2007
            • 30496
            #6
            Originally posted by Auferstehen View Post
            Greetings!

            I’m receiving some really helpful PMs from other posters regarding either helpful websites, or recordings, or other reading material (especially concerning Beethoven), which are proving really useful. I do not want to lose them, or delete them accidentally.

            Is there any way I can save these PMs on my PC without having to copy and paste?
            'Morning, Mario

            Dave's method is the standard one. You can save messages selectively (the Inbox and Sent folders separately) by ticking the messages you want to save and then, as Dave said, going to the Selected Messages box and choosing your option. Should you want to save them all, you can scroll down to the bottom of the page and choose the Download option there (again the Inbox and Sent messages have to be saved separately).
            It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

            Comment

            • Dave2002
              Full Member
              • Dec 2010
              • 18039
              #7
              Mario's question may relate specifically to keeping some text - so the method I've outlined to export will do most of that. If the files are exported as CSVs then the messages can be imported into Excel or another program. Note that exporting in the way I've suggested does not delete the PMs from the For3 PM mailbox - so the messages are still there, and can be exported again in different formats.

              I use these approaches when the mailbox becomes full, or nearly full to clear space. It may be that Mario simply wants to make copies of PMs for use elsewhere. The text and CSV exports will work quite well. The XML export could also be useful, but might require some programming knowledge. I did think of making a sort of PM repository based on XML, but like some other things, have never quite got round to it - yet. It shouldn't be too difficult for anyone with some programming skills and knowledge of XML.

              See http://saxon.sourceforge.net/ and
              http://wttools.sourceforge.net/emacs.../basicxml.html for ideas.

              XSLT is a useful thing to know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XSLT
              and see also https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xsl_intro.asp

              Also https://softwareengineering.stackexc...recommend-xslt
              and this query "Does anyone use XSLT anymore" and possible answers - https://softwareengineering.stackexc...sed-on-the-web

              If the reasons for saving are to save space in the For3 PM mailbox, then various techniques can help before the 200 message limit is reached, such as keeping copies of replies which embed the original message and delete the original, and deleting near duplicates, and deleting messages whcih are essentially acknowledgements or trivial. I usually want to keep track of who I've actually sent and received messages from, and some idea of the contents.

              Comment

              • Dave2002
                Full Member
                • Dec 2010
                • 18039
                #8
                One thing to watch out for when exporting the PMs to any of the three file formats is that the file names may be the same if done on the same day. That could lead to a situation where files are overwritten and hence PMs lost. I can't remember exactly right now, but it is something to watch for. I think it's because there isn't an option (as I remember it) to save to a named file, so the way to do it is to save to the default file name which is based on a date format, then copy and move the file afterwards before trying to create a new export. Files with different extensions for CSV, text and XML are created, so that's not a problem if each format option is chosen in turn, but if different PM selections are wanted, a difficulty may arise.

                Comment

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