The problem with mail is that messages aren’t intrinsically addressable
Sunday, July 9th, 2006If we had URNs for mail items, we’d have a much easier time finding emails. Think about it. You can find the address of a web page, of a blog item, of just about anything that matters. But you can’t do it for a mail message. At least not in a way that’s useful. That’s absurd.It doesn’t matter what operating system you use: why can you not construct a list of email addresses (say in another email). Why can’t I point to an email message, right click, and select “Copy link” and then write “Hey Jim, you haven’t answered <paste>mailid:foobar” Surely it’s simple to do too? Doesn’t every mail message have a unique ID, Message-Id. On OS X, surely Mail can locate a message given an ID, and surely we can rewire the internals to recognize a different type of URN? We have “http:” and a few others, so how about “mailid:fooobar@zap.com” being a link, and if I click on it, Mail locates the message? And if the message is not there, give me a 404. What am I missing here? Doesn’t a sent mail have the same Message-Id as the received email? This would be so useful, there must be a reason why somebody hasn’t implemented it. Extensions could offer support for naming the attachment in a message too.What brought this on? I was playing with Kinkless GTD, following some of Merlin Mann’s excellent advice. Here I am organizing projects and actions and reference material. I can drag AddressBook items, spreadsheets, documents, you name it. Woo hoo. I can’t drag Mail items though. WT! This would be useful here, for programs like kGTD, but elsewhere too. Mail messages should be intrinsically addressable.Aside: If you’re interested extensions to Mail.app, check out Hawk Wings.
