An email archive is a repository generally kept in a non-productive environment to provide secure preservation of email for compliance and operational purposes. A email archiving system automatically extracts message contents and attachments from incoming/outgoing emails and after indexing, it stores them in read-only format. This ensures that archived records are maintained in their original state.

The active approach adopted by email archiving solutions ensures that the company has a centralized and accessible copy of all its email. This provides additional protection against accidental or intentional deletion of emails by end-users. This also eliminates the need to search for personal archives on each and every local machine whenever litigation support is requested.

It must be noted that ‘backup’ and ‘archival’ storage serve two different purposes. Backups are intended to save current data against the event of failure or disaster whilst archives protect data so that it can be accessed when needed.

Email archiving is included on all our Email Hosting accounts. This feature is disabled by default. To turn it on do the following:

1) Login to the “Domain Management” section on the Email Message System for your domain.
2) Click the “Misc” button.
3) Make sure the “Disable Legal Archive” option is unchecked, and then click the “Save” button.

Once you do this, a copy of all incoming and outgoing email for your domain will be kept in a read only archive for 7 years. We chose 7 years to meet most of the industry requirements. To access this archive click the “Legal Archive” button within the “Domain Management” interface.

If you require a custom email archive setup, please contact us.  We can set up a email archive that will keep archives for shorter or longer periods or will only archive specific email based on “To”, “From”, or “Subject”.

Email archiving requirements are different based on country, state, and type of business. Be sure to research to find what is required for your business. One such document to aid in your research is available at: https://www.intradyn.com/email-retention-laws/