We will set up an email archive for you and give you an email address to which you can forward all your emails in BCC (i.e., blind carbon copy). We will also forward copies of all incoming emails to your archive.
The emails will be stored on a DIFFERENT server than your original emails. This not only frees up space in your mailbox, but also provides you with a secure backup.
This means that all incoming and outgoing emails are stored in the email archive. Of course, we will set everything up for you and also back up all your previous emails once at the start.
You get a whopping 50GB of storage per email archive, and this is cumulative. So if you have 5 archives, you have a total of 250 GB, and we don't care how much of that is used in which mailbox.
You can easily open and search your mail archives via your browser. A variety of filters are available for this purpose, and you can easily find emails that are many years old. See the example image above.
Advantages of email archiving:
- Store contracts for 10 years in a legally compliant manner
- Free up space in your inbox
- Save important emails
- Find everything again in no time
- Restore emails that you have deleted
There are two decisions to make at the outset:
1. Do you want to archive your emails in a legally compliant manner, or are you just interested in backing up your emails and freeing up space in your inbox?
Background:
The system always creates an ADMIN account. You can use the ADMIN account to configure settings—for example, “Emails may not be deleted for 10 years.” This admin account has its own archive. The reason for this is that if, for example, an employee leaves your company, you can simply move their emails there and delete their archive. Because if you have 10 former employees and have to pay for their archives every month, that's kind of silly.
The catch: the admin ALWAYS has the option to delete emails.
This means that emails stored in the admin's archive are not legally secure.
The legally secure way would therefore be to create the desired number of archives IN ADDITION to the admin and NOT assign the admin an email address.
So:
1a) Only as a backup = you pay for as many archives as you have mailboxes.
1b) Legally secure = you pay for the number of mailboxes + 1 archive for the admin.
2. Do you also want to back up your email folders?
Many retailers have dozens of folders in their email inbox, such as “Customers,” “Suppliers,” etc.
We will back these up for you during the FIRST backup. Now the question is: what should happen in the future?
2a) If you create new folders over time, they should also appear in the archive.
2b) It is sufficient for you if all emails in the archive are located in the inbox there (the search function in the archive is really good).
If you choose 2a), we would install a special version of the Mailstore program on your Windows PC (you have Windows, right?). This should be a PC that runs daily (i.e., the boss's?).
With 2b), you don't need any extra programs.
3. Should emails be deleted from the archive after 10 years?
Simple yes or no question :-)
How do I archive my emails?
Incoming emails:
For incoming emails, you can usually add a “Mail copy to:” option with your host. This means that all incoming emails will be sent to the archive as a copy.
Sending mails:
Shop:
Most newer shops also allow you to add an additional email address in the settings.
Email programs:
In Thunderbird, for example, you can also add a BCC address under Tools > Account Settings > Copies & Folders.
On mobile phones, programs such as Aquamail and K9 have this function. Many ticket systems (if you use one) also have this feature.
Webmail:
If you write your emails exclusively in your browser, there will be no automatic BCC function for sent emails. You will then have to manually copy the archive address into the BCC field each time you send an email. However, the email will be archived anyway when the recipient replies. Alternatively, you can use the “Mailstore” program, see 2a above.
How many archives do I need?
One archive per mailbox you want to back up. If you want to be legally compliant, then one more archive than you want to back up mailboxes. See above.
Can I / must I back up all emails?
Please consult a lawyer for this.
How do I restore emails?
Go to your archive, find the email, check it, and click “Restore.” The system will send the email as an attachment to your inbox for further processing or replying. Don't worry: it will still remain in the archive. You can also read it directly in the archive, print it, open it as an .eml file, or delete it.
Is the archive audit-proof?
Is the archive audit-proof?
Yes, if you choose option 1b, see above.
What happens when the mailbox is deleted from the server?
Let's say you archive the mailbox of your employee Max Müller. When he leaves the company and you delete the mailbox from the server, the emails will still remain there until you terminate his archive. You could move the emails to the admin archive and then delete Max Müller's archive—we would help you with that. But, as mentioned, the admin can always delete emails. Anything stored in the admin archive is not legally secure.
Can I archive multiple mailboxes with a single archive?
This is technically possible. You will then have one archive and a selection of email addresses below it:
If you now want to delete an email address, you must:
- Install the MailStore program and log in to your portal
- Disable deletion protection (which, of course, violates compliance)
- Go to the respective email address
- Check each email individually and delete it. (There is no “select all” button.)
- Undo the settings.
This is why we advise against it. If you have one user per mailbox, we can simply delete the user and that's it.
What happens if you exceed your storage limit?
Then you will simply be charged for the next 50 GB started. But as I said, the storage space is cumulative across all archives created. Nobody needs more storage space in everyday life. At least, we haven't come across anyone who does.
I didn't understand everything / I have questions!
Yes, we felt the same way the first time. Please ask. Preferably by email, not “quickly” on the phone. The topic is really complex.
Setting up and configuring the email archive
We help small retailers with “normal” mailboxes (Thunderbird, SMTP) set up for free.
Retailers with Outlook 365 or Google Workspace will receive a link to instructions.
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