Index Status

The Mail Manager search works by creating and maintaining an up to date index in the users local Windows profile.

 

How the index works

• The index is maintained by an Indexer, which is comprised of a Scanner and a Builder.

• The Scanner determines what work needs to be done and passes the information to the builder.

• When required it will also delete items from the index.

• The Builder extracts the information from the messages and adds it to the index.

 

Using the Index Status window

• A complete scan of all locations occurs once a day or each time Outlook is restarted.

• The total number of items to be indexed will be shown based on when the scan took place.

• If additional locations or messages are added, they will be identified during the next complete scan.

• Subsequent scans occur on locations where there is "Activity" and/or "Interest" (see the list below).

• After subsequent scans, the total number of items to be indexed may be less than that shown after the initial scan. This is expected and is noticeable when using Mail Manager for the first time or when the path of a location has changed e.g. from a Drive to a UNC.

• The queue of items to be indexed is constantly being re-prioritised based on user "Activity and "Interest" e.g. filing and searching.

 

Column information

Completed	Percentage of scanned items that have been completed (see notes above)
Filing location	Filing location description
Collection	Associated .mmcollection file
Path	Filing location directory
Activity	As a percentage, the scanner's definition of how active this location looks
Interest	As a percentage, the builder's definition of how interesting this location is to the current user
Average item build time	Of the last 20 items for this filing location
Last build time	Of an item for this filing location
Average item pause time	Of the last 20 items for this filing location
Last pause time	Of an item for this filing location
Last filed time	When the current user last filed to here
Scan failure	True or nothing, can't find a folder
Last scanned time	When the indexer last looked in here
Most recent index item time	When the indexer last restarted, when the most recent indexed item was updated
Watching	Whether the indexer is monitoring this location for changes
Scanning	Can be one of "Active", "Completed" or empty when scanner is not running
In use	Indicates whether the currently running index is using this location
Subordinate	Indicates whether this filing location is a subordinate to another in a folder hierarchy
Indexed items total	The number of items read from the index minus any items that have been deleted
Scanned items total	The total number of items that the scanner found in this location
Skipped items total	The number of items the scanner has found that are already in the index
Rejected items total	The number of items the scanner has found that aren't email messages (eml or msg)
Deleted items total	*The number of items deleted from the index for this location
Commit pending items total	The number of items built, but not yet written to the index
Successfully built items	The number of items built minus the number of build errors
Built items	The number of items built (all attempts counted)
Discarded items	The number of items discarded as the queue gets too large
Building errors	The number of items that could not be built (for whatever reason)
Builder queue size	The number of items in the queue that are awaiting processing

Items are updated in the index by a delete, followed by an add operation.