Email Archiving Principles

• mailbox … user's mail storage area on a mail server, keeps messages in folders, limited size.
• mail client … (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.) accesses mailbox via IMAP protocol (makes local copy of the mailbox on user’s computer).
• webmail client … accesses a mailbox via web browser
• email archiving … systematic approach to saving and protecting the data contained in e-mail messages so it can be accessed quickly at a later date
• local folders… set of mail folders located on the computer where mail client is installed and running

• Users must be aware of the limited size of their institutional mailbox.
• Regular maintaining of the mailbox is recommended (see below for details and hints).
• Users should make regular backup of their local archive folder

There are several ways to achieve this:

1. unnecessary messages wiping (after deleting empty the recycle bin folder)
2. bigger attachments detaching (sort emails by size and deliberately remove the biggest attachments)
3. move messages to your computer mail folder (archiving to local archive) and make backup of your archive regularly then

• check folders size (use webmail for this)
• remember to empty the recycle bin email folder

• You can archive messages by moving them to Local folders in your mail client (Thunderbird)
• Make immediately a fresh copy of the local archive to a different storage media (external disc, etc.)
• Be aware that your local archive is on your computer so its content is not accessible via webmail

• classify messages by durability (assign a folder for temporary messages, mark, tag, etc.)
• make “preliminary archive” folder inside of server's mailbox, continuously process messages movement
• move spasmodically (regularly or on demand) messages from the pre-archive to the local archive folders
• this significantly reduces the need to copy the local archive to the external media
• the local folders copy on the external disc could be connected and used off-line, kept and distributed

• all messages concerning any topic older than …
• all messages with tag “temporary” and older than a month
• all messages with attachments from sender XY
• all messages in folder AB since … till …
• all messages from the last year unprocessed by the rules mentioned above

• move to a different folder inside the mailbox (still on the mail server)
• move from the server to the local folder (on local disc)
• clean