Easiest way to save emails from Outlook to Dropbox

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askelon

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#230507 27-Feb-2018 09:40

Im looking for an easy (as in as few a steps as possible) way to save individual emails to different folders on dropbox - the desktop has dropbox running on it so even a save to a file location is fine. Currently running Outlook 2016 connected to Office365. The customer doesnt want to have to do a file -> save as each time.

I was looking at http://www.repstor.com/products/affinity which looks interesting and would possibly do what he wants. Have to see about prices though. Would be nice if they had a proper real working video of it.

Then of course he wants to be able to do the same from his ipad/iphone. I'll have to look into that later on though.

Stu

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#1964910 27-Feb-2018 09:53

How about Drag n Drop the particular email into the Dropbox folder??

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askelon

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#1964913 27-Feb-2018 09:58

Thats a possibility. I'll have to try a few different things with him and see what hes actually able to do.

mdf

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#1964916 27-Feb-2018 10:07

Drag and drop from outlook to desktop / file explorer works fine, but you won't have easy access to the email metadata (from, to, sent/received date, has attachments etc.) so it is much less user friendly to find the email you're looking for again later if it is for records management or archival purposes.

Additional queries: why dropbox if the customer already has O365 and OneDrive and SharePoint? You're introducing another cloud service with privacy, security etc. risks.

How many users? For single use, there are quite a few options to help bridge this gap, mostly Outlook plug ins.

How firm is the mobile requirement? The range of options that run (well) on both desktop and mobile is pretty limited from what I can find.

askelon

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#1964920 27-Feb-2018 10:11

Hes been using dropbox for years, has a good 250k files in it and doesnt want to switch to anything else. It'll be for a single user at this stage. As for the mobile requirements that I need to discuss with him but he'll most likely want something since he tends to do most of his work on the ipad as hes only in his office 50% of the time. I would actually prefer he switches to something like Actionstep which actually works well for his purposes even with its issues.

mdf

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#1964936 27-Feb-2018 10:31

Actionstep isn't my favourite bit of software. Though it does seem to offer dropbox integration. How does it work on mobile?

I can't think of anything offhand that would do what you're after. Spitballing things that _might_ work, have you tried experimenting with the dropbox apps and connectors? They describe being able to do what you want to do with email attachments, but not the emails themselves. Another option (for the iPad at least) might be switching away from the Outlook app and using the web client (I'm really impressed with the new web client; it can do things that the desktop version cannot). Finally (I suspect this won't fit existing habits), if there are only a few destination folders and you can identify a theme, you could try a form of automatic filing via a transport rule or Microsoft Flow.

askelon

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#1964993 27-Feb-2018 11:32

Good question on Actionsteps mobile integration. Im not even sure it has any! I know it has its issues (had various issues with their support) but its relatively good for the most part and I know it would do for what he wants. Convincing him of something like thats a whole other story!

He really wants to just have copies of the whole email (with attachments etc) saved into various folders. His current method of doing this is getting the PA to do it. So whatever I use has to be simple and quick for him. I suspect shes just dragging and dropping them.

MackinNZ

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#1964999 27-Feb-2018 11:40

Have you looked at Flow in O365?

There's a template in there to save email attachments to Dropbox, not sure about moving entire emails though.

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mdf

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#1965008 27-Feb-2018 11:59

I've had another thought, but it might be a bit hack-y if there are too many folders involved. Is the filing system in Dropbox complicated (say client > opportunity > activity) or simple ("done")?

askelon

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#1965010 27-Feb-2018 12:02

Its basic setup is Clients > Client Name > 5 or so subfolders

mdf

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#1965024 27-Feb-2018 12:17

How often would he set up new clients/folders?

askelon

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#1965028 27-Feb-2018 12:24

It would be fairly regularly. Few a month at least

myopinion

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#1965042 27-Feb-2018 12:50

Why not just leave everything in outlook and rely on search when you need something?

bagheera

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#1965148 27-Feb-2018 14:36

issues at work over the years with saved email that are in outlook format is the newer versions of outlook do not open old emails, so stuff save 15 years ago just error on opening. Save them as text or HTML format to save you issues in the future, or the poor IT person who has to support 15-year email saved that does not open anymore, so it his problem to fix not the user that did it in the first place......

mdf

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#1965386 27-Feb-2018 20:48

It's a little bit of a kludge for what you want to do, but one option at a reasonable price point would be to use Tech Hit's MessageSave Outlook plug in. It's an exporting tool for Outlook to desktop. Assuming you've got the dropbox set up as a desktop folder, that should work fine. Part of Message Save includes a scheduled export where you can set up a folder (incl subfolders) to be mirrored across to a desktop file. You'd need to set up matching folder trees, but dragging and dropping an email into an Outlook subfolder will automatically mirror it up to the desktop/drop box on schedule. Advantage of this is that he can file emails on a mobile client, and they will all sync across on the schedule. He will also have copies of his emails with full metadata in outlook.

Kludgie bits are setting up the mirrored folder trees (initially, should be okay for subsequent folders) and having to have a desktop client running somewhere to drive the sync.

In terms of historic compatibility, .msg files have been around for a good long while. Outlook Express might have used something different though? In any event, MessageSave allows you to export in .pdf or .eml/RFC822 which are open/widely available. .eml have the added advantage of populating metadata that file explorer can read (go figure. File explorer can read .eml, but cannot read Microsoft's own .msg format).

askelon

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#1965513 28-Feb-2018 09:24

Thankyou people for the suggestions. I'll be going in tomorrow to discuss it with him. Why he wants to save them all like that? No idea. I think it was originally an idea of one of the employees who had done it elsewhere. I at least have a few options now so will see what he says.