Hierarch.pm lives in the New mail directory.

For a number of years I have been using "added mail boxes" as a way to offload and archive some mail so that I can still access it if necessary. I have found the add mail box facility to be flaky and dangerous to use but by being careful I have managed so far.

In particular, I have created extra mail boxes and stored mail in a folder hierarchy in them. However, I have found that in order to use these mail boxes it does not seem that their path and/or name can be changed. Trying to use another path or name can corrupt everything. I have never understood this; I have just worked with it.

However, I now need to move these extra mail boxes to another location. Is there any way to do this?

I have investigated a little to try to figure out why it works this way. The help instructions give a different impression of how it ought to work so I had always presumed that each mail box would have its own, independent folder hierarchy. However, I can see that the added mail box directories contain only FOL files. 

So I went looking through the main hierarch.pm file in Pegasus' "New Mailbox" directory. I can see that it contains references to the external mail boxes and their file structure that include paths and file names. So it seems the external mail boxes are not independent but are hard coded into the main hierarch.pm file. Is there any way around this?

Also, while looking in the hierarch.pm file I noted a lot of garbage entries that seem to refer to long deleted material. Is this normal? Shouldn't those entries have been removed when the items to which they refer were deleted?

I'd appreciate any help.

Hierarch.pm does not self-clean.  It operates on the assumption that every entry will be reused.  When adding & disconnecting added mailboxes it is very common to accumulate a lot of entries that contain "Name unavailable". Connecting an added mailbox will create entries for its folders.  Disconnecting that added mailbox will change each of those entries to contain "Name unavailable".  Reconnecting that mailbox should reuse the entries.  IMHO, invalid entries are benign.  Some folks remove them.  Others have run into problems don so.  I have experienced success and problems.  I didn't see any benefit to the successful clean-ups so I don't bother anymore.

As for moving an added mailbox, disconnecting it from the folder list, moving its location, and then adding it back in its new location would be the approach.  I'm pretty certain you will lose tray structure.  You might test by adding a directory as an added mailbox, create a tray structure, disconnect it, move it, add it back.  Of course this will add some entries in hierarch.pm but it will give you an idea of what to expect.

Thank you for your reply. It helps to be able to correspond with someone with more experience.

So, one ought to be able to just remove the "Name unavailable" entries that obviously refer to items that no longer exist? What would be the consequence of mistakenly removing an item in use? Would it become inaccessible?

"As for moving an added mailbox, disconnecting it from the folder list,

moving its location, and then adding it back in its new location would

be the approach.  I'm pretty certain you will lose tray structure."

In view of the fact that the tray structure for the added mailbox is in the Hierarch.pm file (in the New Mail file) and hard coded to the original location your supposition seems certain. Pegasus would have no way of knowing that a mailbox at a different location was the same one.

 "You might test by adding a directory as an added mailbox, create a tray

structure, disconnect it, move it, add it back."

I have tried that, of course, with a copy of the mailbox I wanted to move. The result is null. Pegasus treats it as an empty mailbox, not only without tray structure but without any folders (altho there are many). This seems inconsistent with the following "help" entry.

"Add mailbox to list:  This command allows you to add another mailbox to your folder view. You will be prompted to enter a directory or a username which Pegasus Mail should use to locate the mailbox. It will then proceed to add that mailbox as a root entry in the Folder Manager window, and will add any recognizable mail folders from that location into that root entry."

This gives the impression that the directory (path) entered is (only) for the purpose of locating the mailbox whereas Pegasus actually seems to use it to identify the mailbox in the Hierarch.pm file. It also claims that the Folder Manager will add the mail folders found at the designated location to the root entry added. This is not true. Is there some way I am doing this wrong?

[quote user="CraigSpencer"]Thank you for your reply. It helps to be able to correspond with someone with more experience.

So, one ought to be able to just remove the "Name unavailable" entries that obviously refer to items that no longer exist? What would be the consequence of mistakenly removing an item in use? Would it become inaccessible?[/quote]

The consequence is a corrupted file resulting in a new one being created with a loss of folder structure.  Immediately restoring a backup will recover.

[quote user="CraigSpencer"]

 "You might test by adding a directory as an added mailbox, create a tray

structure, disconnect it, move it, add it back."

I have tried that, of course, with a copy of the mailbox I wanted to move. The result is null. Pegasus treats it as an empty mailbox, not only without tray structure but without any folders (altho there are many). This seems inconsistent with the following "help" entry.

"Add mailbox to list:  This command allows you to add another mailbox to your folder view. You will be prompted to enter a directory or a username which Pegasus Mail should use to locate the mailbox. It will then proceed to add that mailbox as a root entry in the Folder Manager window, and will add any recognizable mail folders from that location into that root entry."

This gives the impression that the directory (path) entered is (only) for the purpose of locating the mailbox whereas Pegasus actually seems to use it to identify the mailbox in the Hierarch.pm file. It also claims that the Folder Manager will add the mail folders found at the designated location to the root entry added. This is not true. Is there some way I am doing this wrong?[/quote]

When I instruct users on how to archive mail I instruct them to create a directory using Window File Explorer.  Then go into Pegasus Mail and add it as an added mailbox.  Once added, create the desired folders in it, copy the messages they want to archive to the appropriate folders, disconnect the added mailbox, re-add it and confirm the can read messages, delete the original messages and/or folders.  This process reminds me that from within Pegasus Mail you can't manipulate between mailboxes at the folder level.  It appears to work (no error thrown) but it doesn't.

Thinking this through though, I don't think it should be relevant when working outside of Pegasus Mail.  Nothing comes to mind as to why you can't move a directory to a new location and add it as a mailbox.  In your test did you have the old mailbox still attached?  If so, the resulting duplicate folder id's might explain why it displayed empty.  Might the moved location have been ReadOnly?

Thanks again for your reply.

The archival process you describe is almost certainly (it was so long ago that I don't really remember) what I did originally. I have been occasionally adding the same mailbox, moving message into it and then disconnecting it ever since. [Yes, moving folders does not work which is a pain.]

My test consisted of copying the above mentioned mailbox to a new location. I can add the copy as a mailbox. But when I add the copy as a mailbox it appears as an empty mailbox (in spite of the fact that it is full of folders) contrary to the "help" entry. The old mailbox (the folder copied) was not still attached. The copy was not read only.

As you bring up, the folder IDs in the copy are the same as those in the original which are listed in Hierarch.pm as pertaining to the location of the original file. Do you suppose that the file manager might look up those file IDs in Hierarch.pm, find that they pertain to what it thinks is a different mailbox and therefore refuse to recognize them?

[quote user="CraigSpencer"]As you bring up, the folder IDs in the copy are the same as those in the original which are listed in Hierarch.pm as pertaining to the location of the original file. Do you suppose that the file manager might look up those file IDs in Hierarch.pm, find that they pertain to what it thinks is a different mailbox and therefore refuse to recognize them?[/quote]

My understanding is that the ID's are only a problem if they are duplicates in the folder list which is why i wondered whether the original mailbox was still connected.  I am suspicious that this is the problem though.  There is a utility called Pmailundup that was designed to created remove duplicate emails but, IIRC, the results it produces contain different folder ID's.  I'm not certain about this and all of my notes are at the office so I'm hopeful someone will chime in. 

PMailundup is available from the downloads area of this forum:  http://community.pmail.com/files/folders/utils/entry50570.aspx

Why would it matter if the original mailbox was still connected? Whether or not it is connected its folder IDs appear in Hierarch.pm file. My understanding is that the only change if it was connected would be that the folder manager would have parsed all the mailbox's folders and inserted their internal names in place of "Name Unknown" in the Hierarch.pm file.

I suppose duplicate folder IDs might occur by accident. Is this PMailundup utility supposed to find such cases and change one of the IDs so it no longer conflicts?

 BTW: I am using V4.72.572 and I understand the V4.73 is current. Is there any difference that might be significant?

I was wrong about PMailundup.  The utility I was trying to think of last night was PMRestArch.  Find it here: http://www.lexacorp.com.pg/lexacorp_utilities.html#EMail

Here are some details:

Pegasus Mail cannot display two mail folders with the same internal ID even if they are in separate mailboxes. Mail folders also have to be Read-Write.

This causes problems when trying to view mail folders which have been archived by copying them to backup media.

This utility:
1. Copies all .PMM and .PMI files in the source directory to the destination directory and renames them as BAKxxxxx.PMM and BAKxxxx.PMI.
2. Ensures that the resulting file is Read/Write.
3. Creates a different internal unique ID for the file.

As for Pegasus Mail v4.73, I think it is worth upgrading.  The new Open SSL is a must anyone whose POP3 or SMTP host require it (probably everyone eventually) and the new help system is a plus.  The release notes are here: http://www.pmail.com/v47x.htm

Thanks again. Now I need to think to figure out what I can do. There do not seem to be any particularly good options.

Other question: Does the Hierarch.pm file live in the New mail directory or the Home directory?