ePADD

ePADD is a tool for transferring and processing email collections.

Start, save, closing ePADD

In order to run ePADD, go to the tools folder in the processing computer shared drive and click on epadd.exe. ePADD will open in a browser window.

To save your work (at later stages of this workflow), click the save button in the banner.

When you are finished using ePADD:

1. Close the browser tab that it's open in
2. Go to the system tray in the bottom right hand corner of your screen.
3. Click the small up arrow
4. In the box that pops up, right click on the ePADD logo and select "Quit ePADD"

Import

In order to use ePADD, you must first import email into the system. This can be either through an active account or through downloaded email files.

Basic Metadata

Regardless of the source of the email, first provide basic metadata about the email account:

1. Name of Archive Owner: the owner of the email account, the person listed in the "from" field in the emails.
2. Primary Email Address: the email address used to send messages with the account
3. Archive Title: formulate a title as you would for an entry in a finding aid, most likely at a series level

Importing email from an active account

There are two ways to import emails from active accounts. The first is public IMAP email accounts are those from the major email companies (not a private group using that software) such as Gmail. The other is Private IMAP Email accounts, such as a university, corporate, or group (who may still be using one of major email companies' software, such as Microsoft exchange, Google, etc.).

Public IMAP Email account (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Live.com, etc.)

1. Enter in the email address
2. The donor should now enter their password, either in person or via the Zoom remote control feature to allow the user to control your screen and enter the password.
3. If the donor has other accounts to include, you can click "add another public imap email account" and repeat steps 1 and 2.
4. If finished, scroll to the bottom of the page and click next. You can now proceed to the selecting folders section. (link)

Private IMAP Email account (Google apps, university account, corporate account, etc.)

1. Enter in the address for the imap server, you may have to ask the donor to find this, it is often used when setting up email on your phone or for a Desktop email client such as Outlook or Thunderbird. In the case of MIT, the address currently is: `imap.exchange.mit.edu`
2. Enter in the email address
3. The donor should now enter their password, if doing this in person or via the Zoom remote control feature to allow the user to control your screen and enter the password.
4. If the donor has other accounts to include, you can click "add another public imap email account" and repeat steps 1 through 3.
5. If finished, scroll to the bottom of the page and click next. You can now proceed to the selecting folders section. (link)

Importing email from a local email file

ePADD has the ability to import email from local email files in the MBOX format. Local email files are often found within a transfer from a creator's hard drive or have been exported from an email system. If the content is not in the MBOX format, you will need to convert it using Emailchemy first, proceed to the Non-Mbox email files section below.

MBOX email files

1. Click the browse button and in the pop-up window navigate to the location of the email and select the MBOX file or folder. Then click confirm.
2. If you have other files or folders include, you can click "add folder" and repeat step 1.
3. If finished, scroll to the bottom of the page and click next. You can now proceed to the selecting folders section. (link)

Non-MBOX email files

The email conversion software, Emailchemy, is integrated with ePadd and allows us to convert other formats of email into MBOX within this workflow.

1. Insert the Emailchemy license USB dongle into the processing computer.
2. Go to the Non-Mbox email files section of the ePADD import screen. The "Emailchemy License" section should read "License Active"
3. Click the browse button and in the pop-up window navigate to the location of the email and select the email file or folder.
4. For Input File Format, select the format your email currently is in, such as "Outlook for Windows".
5. Unless you are importing multiple sources of email, such as IMAP, MBOX, etc., skip the "Name of email source" section.
6. Go to the bottom of the screen and click Next. You can now proceed to the selecting folders section. (link)

Selecting folders

On the next page, you will be able to select which folder(s) from within the account you with to transfer. If you want to transfer the whole account, select all the folders. Once done, click "Next"

The import process will now begin. This may take some time as the files might be transferred from a remote storage location and ePADD also will run some analysis tools on the email. If working with a donor, you can most likely end your session with them and follow up after the import procedure has finished.

Reviewing reports

Once the content is finished importing, you will see a landing page like the one below.

Go to the Reports box and look to see what the errors are. If anything mentions a failure to transfer, you can redo to the import again. Many error messages are obscure and difficult to figure out. If some of the error messages are extensive or look like they need further investigation, contact the digital archivist.

After checking the reports, you can browse the folders or correspondents and click into a few emails to see if they transferred correctly. If you see anything major that you got transferred mistakenly, either from a correspondent or in a particular folder, you can apply a "do not transfer" label in bulk to those items.  

At this point you can follow up with the donor on whether the transfer was successful or not and whether the process needs repeating.

Next steps and exporting content from ePADD

If you are fairly certain that your transfer was successful and are ready to continue processing, you can begin by reviewing the content using the reviewing for restrictions documentation. (link) Once that is completed, you can start the steps below.

If you don't have time to process the email within the next 30 days, you should export the email to the submission drive using the export module found on the top of the page.

Exporting files

1. Create a folder on the submission drive with the standard digital package name based on the accession number which this email is found, for instance, 2022_060acc.
2. Start with the "Export to next ePADD module" section and browse to the location in the submission drive you created in step 1 and click confirm.

3. Click export.

   Note

   If you assigned "do not transfer" labels to material, they will be excluded from the export. In order to do steps 4 and 5 below, you will have to go to the ePADD processing module and export the MBOX file there using the set of files you exported in steps 1-3 above. If the email you are working on falls into this category, proceed to the ePADD processing documentation. (link)

4. Go to the export messages in MBOX format and choose "Export all messages" from the dropdown menu and click export.
5. A box should pop up "saying Downloading..." and then it will give you the option about where to save the files. Choose the same folder as the one you created in step 1.
6. Once saved, proceed to the Preparing for Archivematica section.