Searching in Mail 5.1

[Vicke]

This is my first post, so please excuse/advise if I have started this thread in the wrong place.

I have recently got a new iMac and am intent on keeping it shipshape unlike my macbook pro which is horrendously clogged with files. I was battling with whether to even use the Mail app or just go on gmail, but the temptation to use the new Lion apps made me cave. However to keep to my intentions I didn't want thousands of messages being saved locally (however small they are) so in preferences selected "Don't keep copies of any messages" in which a dialog box comes up saying that it means I won't be able to search or view mail offline.

The latter point is understandable, but I'm wondering if there is any walk around to still be able to search, as it's one of the prime functions I find. For example even with the iPhone, you're able to connect and search the whole server where necessary.

Please share if you have any tips on this, or even just the damning reality that this is not possible. Thanks!

 

[S.B.G]

This is my first post, so please excuse/advise if I have started this thread in the wrong place.

I have recently got a new iMac and am intent on keeping it shipshape unlike my macbook pro which is horrendously clogged with files. I was battling with whether to even use the Mail app or just go on gmail, but the temptation to use the new Lion apps made me cave. However to keep to my intentions I didn't want thousands of messages being saved locally (however small they are) so in preferences selected "Don't keep copies of any messages" in which a dialog box comes up saying that it means I won't be able to search or view mail offline.

The latter point is understandable, but I'm wondering if there is any walk around to still be able to search, as it's one of the prime functions I find. For example even with the iPhone, you're able to connect and search the whole server where necessary.

Please share if you have any tips on this, or even just the damning reality that this is not possible. Thanks!

I believe if you setup a Gmail account and configure it as IMAP in Mail.app, that you can scroll down to the 'All Mail' folder and it will search the server. If you delete a message in Mail.app, it will be deleted on the server as well.

Since you have a new iMac, I am going to assume that you probably have a 500GB - 1TB HDD in it. If storage space of email is your concern, you really don't need to worry about it. Mail storage is so insignificant on such large HDD's.

 

[Vicke]

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case. It just annoys me to think that since this isn't a portable machine, I'm never really going to be without the internet to retrieve the messages from the server and therefore shouldn't have to need to store them locally, whatever the minimal space they take up on the harddrive. Of course I may be forced to if there really isn't a way