Steve Tarpin sez: >I send out mails to a number of groups, the largest group being my entire >mailing list of over 4000 names/addresses.... >If PM would recognize the addresses in the body of the mail as a user in >my database, a simple "delete user" from the menu would save me much time >and effort.
My first thought when reading this is that PowerMail isn't really designed to be used as a mail list manager. There is software out there to do this which might be better suited to the task, allowing for statistical tracking, better user management and more. My second thought is that everyone likes to use the tools they have to their fullest extent, so likely they're going to try to do things like what you're doing until they run into a hangup like you've done. :) My third thought was that I actually agree this is an interesting idea anyway. Better recognizing of email addresses in bodytext could also allow one to add an address to the addressbook from there. Right now they can only be added from the header areas, I think. However, after saying all that, I'm not sure PM is designed for that to happen since we're looking at different fields here. So, that leaves AppleScript. I'm not incredibly knowledgeable in the area, but it seems to me this might be something that could be scripted. Select a series of messages, scan the body text for email addresses and remove addresses it finds from the address book. It may be possible to add in user interaction, too, to say yes or no to each. You might really want to look into other software to manage the lists while leaving PowerMail to just do email. If you use Mac OS X, you could even install Unix-based solutions, such as the free MojoMail. MacjorDomo looks interesting as well. In my cursory look, none look like a very very quick setup,some might like external web hosting sites but remember Mac OS X has SMTP services and such so it might be possible to route through there. I'm not sure -- but I set up listserv software on Linux once so I'm sure it's possible? The benefit of struggling through the setup, however, would be that the list could nearly manage itself. People can subscribe and unsubscribe themselves (if you turn on the feature) and some of these things recognize bouncebacks and remove or flag the email address automatically, I believe. This is just an idea. After my cursory look, I'm not sure how feasible it is. Plus, I'm sure I remember seeing specific list management software; perhaps they were database solutions. At any rate, I'm going to keep searching and see if I can find what I remember or something similar to it. It just seems to me something like what you're doing already exists, free or cheap, and it would leave PowerMail to do what it is really designed to do... -- Michael Lewis Off Balance Productions [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.offbalance.com
