More In, Less Out
Eudora Tip #35/18-May-2000

I have over 300 inwards emails relating to items I’ve bought online between June 1995 and now. These include serial numbers, order confirmations, problem reports, update notices and the like.

Sometimes I’ve bought version 1 of some software, then upgraded through a couple more versions and ended up with version 4 or 5 which might have a new serial number. When I come to reinstall software for some reason I need the latest serial number so I do a slightly more complex search.

I might set up a search in the Body for Contains “serial” and then click the More button.

Now I can choose additional criteria, let’s say:

From Contains “Qualcomm”

and I set the Match All / Match Any pop-up to Match-All.

And bingo! It didn’t work – because Qualcomm sent a registration number not a serial number. So I change “serial” to “regist” and try again. (Even Eudora’s amazing search ability can’t find things that aren’t there!)

[SPECIAL NOTE: make life easy for yourself - set up a mailbox which contains only emails with serial numbers, and edit the subject lines to show the name of the software and the number.]