ml> yes, that's quite common in all message base maint tools ;)
 RN>  
 RN> With some limitations.
 RN>  

hunh? message base purging via number of days old a message is carries some
limitations??

the only "limitation" i know of in this arena is if the
"days old" count is done on the message's "write date"
or "arrival date"... it can make a large difference ;)

ml> i use 365 days for the huge majority of my message bases... then 
ml> again, i can because my message base format does not have the same 
ml> restrictions as other message base formats ;)
 RN>  
 RN> Most of the mail nowadays is posted by robot posters, with cooking
 RN> and some others the exception, rather than the rule.
 RN>  

neither here nor there in the context of the conversation ;) however, i can
say that the users who do visit my site can find messages, albeit some
months old, and respond to them which may stir up further traffic ;)

ml> interesting... i've always heard of folk "archiving" their message 
ml> bases but have never seen the option built in or an explanation of 
ml> how they were doing it...
 RN>  
 RN> I do that to prevent myself from being misquoted or misunderstood. 
 RN> In the latter, some people interpret things according to the
 RN> emotional baggage they're carrying at the time and react
 RN> accordingly, instead of asking for clarification.  

understood... this is also why i carry messages for at least a year in my
bases... of course, i always, as does everyone else, have the ability to
save a message to a text file for historical purposes... i've just never
thought of this as an "active archive" option...

from a programing standpoint, it would seem to be just as easy to create an
archivial message base and simply move the messages there (much like
importing them during tossing)... to me, it seems like the search
capabilities of message tools work much better than searching thru a text
file ;)

ml> the archiving method used sounds very similar to my NMPurge utility 
ml> that archives old *.MSG netmails to a text file...
 RN>  
 RN> The ablity to do that has always been included in D'Bridge, along
 RN> with many other features.

FWIW: DB is the only mailer that i've ever heard of that has an actual
"archiving" option in it... then again, i've only ever looked at
less than 5 mailers... but "archiving to a text file" is and has
always been an option for everyone... just not in an "automated
archiving" way ;)

)\/(ark