How to make Google Desktop index your e-mail

**Tracey Capen** · 2011-03-02 14:49

LANGALIST PLUS

How to make Google Desktop index your e-mail

By Fred Langa

The various e-mail clients and systems store messages in different ways, some of which might work at cross-purposes with one of the top PC-search tools — Google Desktop Search.

But with a few quick tweaks, all your e-mails should be able to be indexed and rapidly searched by Google Desktop Search.

The full text of this column is posted at WindowsSecrets.com/2011/03/03/06 (paid content, opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.

**raymerriam** · 2011-03-03 00:39

Regarding the Word normal.dot file item, the file may not be corrupted at all. If it simply gets too big, it will definitely slow down not only the opening and closing of Word, but almost anything you try to do in Word will show a noticeable slowdown. A few years back I encountered the problem and could not figure out why Word had gotten so slow. I finally checked the normal.dot file and saw that it was at 14 MB! I had created quite a few macros to make my life in Word easier, but many were for a single project and I never got rid of them after finishing that project. There were, of course, many other things stored in the normal.dot file, but after deleting it and restarting Word to create a clean normal.dot file, Word was it usual snappy self again. I have since not created many macros and if they are for one-time use, I remove them after I have finished with them. Currently my normal.dot file is around 800 KB.

**Will Fastie** · 2011-03-03 11:50

Believe it or not, most routine screen shot annotation requires nothing more than Windows' built-in Paint tool.

Holy smokes, Fred! Windows Paint got a little better over the years but it's still a piece of junk.

I do this sort of annotation almost daily in my work. But I use Paint.NET because it's actually a real image editor and it is much, much faster than other tools. So even though I own Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, I always use Paint.NET for handling annotation on screen captures.

I admit that I used to use Windows Paint. Once I found Paint.NET many years ago, I stopped.

Oops, did I mention that Paint.NET is free?

**w98fxr** · 2011-03-03 12:42

Unwanted Toolbars: In Firefox, type "about:config" without quotes in the address bar and press Enter, then acknowledge the warning. Scroll down the list looking for entries in bold. When you find the un-wanted toolbar reference, Right click on the entry and Left click "Reset". The Firefox default will be restored. This was the only way I could rid a clients' PC of a particularly stubborn toolbar/search re-director.

**bobprimak** · 2011-03-04 03:53

Originally Posted by Will Fastie

Holy smokes, Fred! Windows Paint got a little better over the years but it's still a piece of junk.

I do this sort of annotation almost daily in my work. But I use Paint.NET because it's actually a real image editor and it is much, much faster than other tools. So even though I own Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, I always use Paint.NET for handling annotation on screen captures.

I admit that I used to use Windows Paint. Once I found Paint.NET many years ago, I stopped.

Oops, did I mention that Paint.NET is free?

My choice as well.

**bobprimak** · 2011-03-04 03:55

Originally Posted by w98fxr

Unwanted Toolbars: In Firefox, type "about:config" without quotes in the address bar and press Enter, then acknowledge the warning. Scroll down the list looking for entries in bold. When you find the un-wanted toolbar reference, Right click on the entry and Left click "Reset". The Firefox default will be restored. This was the only way I could rid a clients' PC of a particularly stubborn toolbar/search re-director.

Could you supply a little more specific detail as to exactly where in about:config the entry is, or better yet, a screenshot with the entry (even the default) highlighted or circled?

**w98fxr** · 2011-03-04 09:59

Could you supply a little more specific detail as to exactly where in about:config the entry is, or better yet, a screenshot with the entry (even the default) highlighted or circled?[/QUOTE]

Items in bold have been modified from the default. I installed the AIM toolbar briefly to highlight the point and then discovered it's easier to find modifications if I click on the Status column to sort between "default" and "user set". I don't have a malware example on the bench today to clarify further but in the past I've just read the entries in bold carefully to see what sticks out in both the Preference Name and Value columns. If you take a spin through yours you'll notice things like default printer and download location preference etc.

**jknauth** · 2011-03-04 12:42

I think many people do not know about the advanced search available in
Thunderbird which is accessed via Ctrl-Shift-F (vs. the Ctrl-F quick
search). For some reason they don't list this advanced search anywhere
in the UI, e.g., under Tools, although it is documented in various
shortcut key lists. This search seems to provide a pretty powerful
facility, allowing you to combine a number of search criteria. Under TB's
Options > General, I have "Enable Global Search and Indexer" checked.
However I have "Allow Windows Search to search messages" unchecked since
I found checking that option created some huge files which I didn't want to
cope with in backups. etc. Jeff

**dvhirst** · 2011-03-04 13:14

The AutoClean utility you mention seems pretty useful. Do any Loungers have experience with it? Advice for using it? Thanks.

**ArtHendricksonJr** · 2011-03-04 16:07

Regarding MS Word's normal.dot template corrupted, I also set a modify password and then set the file to readonly so that I am not prompted for the password. I change the file setting when I know I want to change Normal.dot/dotm. So, even if some malicious code does get through, it becomes much harder for that code to change my Normal.dot/dotm.

**meditator1** · 2011-03-05 05:27

Originally Posted by bobprimak

My choice as well.

Just thought I'd mention that Chrome has a cool little extension for this as well.

Carl

**SamStamport** · 2011-03-07 10:27

Regarding Print Screen: If you hold down Alt then press Print Screen you get only the active window rather than the entire desktop.

**barrym** · 2011-03-09 09:09

Hi,

I find the whole site, news and forums brilliant but Fred's item on google desktop wasn't.... The link he provided to the 'fix' from google for Thunderbird indexing was so old that Windows 7 didn't exist!!

I finally got so frustrated I just dumped the desktop. BTW, I noticed that as soon as I downloaded and ran it I was swamped with mails trying to sell me all sorts of things. It may just be coincidence but my experiences with google are that they sell your details on straight away, typically, trying to stop your location being fixed with chrome....

Not a complaint really, just an observation.

Bye, Barry

**mcheves** · 2011-03-15 13:58

Hi Fred,

This might sound dumb, but I thought it'd be a good idea to delete my normal.dot and force Word to re-create it. Trouble is, I've searched my entire C drive and there is no normal.dot. I even searched for .dot and it found 34 different .dots (almost all in the template folder), but no normal.dot. Any idea where normal.dot might be hiding?

Marc Cheves
Frederick, MD

***JoeP517*** · 2011-03-15 15:58

Originally Posted by mcheves

Hi Fred,

This might sound dumb, but I thought it'd be a good idea to delete my normal.dot and force Word to re-create it. Trouble is, I've searched my entire C drive and there is no normal.dot. I even searched for .dot and it found 34 different .dots (almost all in the template folder), but no normal.dot. Any idea where normal.dot might be hiding?

Marc Cheves
Frederick, MD

If you are using Word 2007 or Word 2010 search for normal.dotm. Or in Word - File tab | Word Options | Advanced | File Locations will show you the exact path.

Joe

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