[quote user="NightGaunt"]

I agree with Henrik. The fact is that Pmail actually changes the "last update" (not only the "last accessed") timestamp of its mailbox files and sets the Archive attribute on them even when doing just a search on them, ie not changing their contents in any way.

This is annoying because the files appear as having been modified even if they are not, and any decent backup software is therefore going to copy them unnecessarily. (I routinely use "robocopy" but every other copy or backup package gets fooled the same way).

[/quote]

Thank you for 'voting' for my logic  [:)]

Maybe I should take a look at 'robocopy'.

- Henrik

It seems that when you do a search in all mail-folders the time-stamp of all mail-files is changed although the content hasn't been touched. This is very unpractical when you do online backups, because relatively simple backup programs think that all files need to be backed up again.

- Henrik

What's your OS? If Win7 (don't know for Vista) there is an attribute like "last accessed" and that is what explorer may display.

cheers

    Olaf

Yes, it's Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. But I am not talking about explorer.

I am having this problem with both of my (rather primitive) online backups. One called "TDC Webdisk Backup" the other I operate with TotalCommander.

In TotCmd I can get around it using Synchronize Directories with "Ignore date", although it's a little cumbersome.

But TDC backup backs up everything if I have done a search in Pegasus. That's tiresome.

Compare dates displayed in Windwos Explorer and i.e. Total Commander. Which date known to Windows is used by Total Commander? Can't test it (WinXP at home and never had Total Commander).

On the other hand ... a good backup should look for the fileattribute "archive" in case of incremental backup, backup these files and reset that attribute.

cheers    Olaf

I hardly ever use Windows Explorer and Pathfinder, so I am not sure which of them I have opened, but it shows the same date and time as TotCmd.

I have just tried attaching a screen shot of it here, but the forum system says I don't have permission.

Neither TDC Backup nor TotCmd-Synchronize Dir.s give me the possibility of using the archive attribute - unfortunately.

It seems to me that the problem here is that Pegasus alters the time-stamp of the PMM-files, when you do a search in them.

[quote user="Henrik Rosenø"]It seems to me that the problem here is that Pegasus alters the time-stamp of the PMM-files, when you do a search in them.[/quote]

I'm sorry, Henrik, but Pegasus Mail is really the wrong target for your complaints: It pretty much looks like you're trying force Pegasus Mail into not dealing with its own data files the exact way it needs to because you're actually using software for backups that doesn't seem to be designed for them. IOW: You either get a better backup solution or direct your feature requests to the designers of the software you're using instead. It's just not fair to blame Pegasus Mail for doing something wrong (or undesirable) in such a context.

Well... In my logic the time-stamp of a file should only be changed when the content of the file is changed.

The mail search also sets the OS archive attribute of the PMM-files.

I agree with Henrik. The fact is that Pmail actually changes the "last update" (not only the "last accessed") timestamp of its mailbox files and sets the Archive attribute on them even when doing just a search on them, ie not changing their contents in any way.

This is annoying because the files appear as having been modified even if they are not, and any decent backup software is therefore going to copy them unnecessarily. (I routinely use "robocopy" but every other copy or backup package gets fooled the same way).

I can confirm that this behaviour has been there since many years, say I noticed it at the time of Windows 95. And it's not a matter of OS, its Pegasus which does it.

I believe this happens because when opening a mailbox Pegasus obviously cannot know in advance whether the user will be going to modify its contents or not, and therefore always opens the file in "Read+Write" mode thus forcing the underlying OS to set the "last update" timestamp to the current date and time and the and Archive flag to the "true" state.

To see what I mean just try this: open a command shell in your mail folder, reset the files' Archive attribute with "attrib -A *.*", run Pegasus, do a simple global text search in the mailbox content, close Pegasus. You will see ("attrib *.*") that all the .PMM files (and many other too...) have been "modified" by this read-only operation, ie they now have their Archive attribute set and "last update" timestamp updated.

Regards,

  Corrado