http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2002/10/07/udell.html Through AltaVista I could find, and then possess, things that I already possessed but could not find. If he were writing that today he would have said Google instead of Altavista, but I remember that AltaVista was king back in 1997 but by 2001 it was definitely Google. It's a tough business because it is so easy for the user to drop you for someone else! > I'd check out Florin's recommendations first. So far grep and sylpheed > have served me well. :) Ever try "grepmail"? It's great for mbox files: http://grepmail.sourceforge.net/ Still falls way short for many uses. Simple example: Suppose you are searching for "Mike Jones" and your message happens to look like this: You really ought to talk to Mike Jones about that issue. Well, with Mike and Jones on two different lines, it won't match. We need something that allows us to handle the newline appropriately. Mike