Online Email Archival System

[ant1973]

Basically we run office 365 for email. We have a cloud practice management system which also stores emails. However, I would like to also have a dedicated cloud based email archival system as a plan B. Ideally it would be searchable without having to download the backup. My 50gb email inbox is about to explode and is crippling the performance of my PC!

We only have 4 users so I am looking for something that is non enterprise based. I have used mimecast in the past but it is really intended for the enterprise market.

[HantsRat]

Will the build in email archive in MS365 not work?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/com...

[ant1973]

HantsRat said:

Will the build in email archive in MS365 not work?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/com...

Doh - did not even realise that was a possibility! So basically, even if I have more than 50gb of emails, I never run out of storage in the archive?

[HantsRat]

ant1973 said:

Doh - did not even realise that was a possibility! So basically, even if I have more than 50gb of emails, I never run out of storage in the archive?

I believe the archive will allow 100GB

[Mr Pointy]

You can also create Data Folders which are separate offline files with a .pst extension which you can move mail into. You can mount the file into Outlook so it appears in the left hand folder pane & the mail is still searchable & usable but doesn't clog up your mailstore. How you organise it depends on how you work - I used to file mail by project so at the end of a project I bundled all the relevant emails into a Project1.pst file where it can be backed up or copied as required. You could do it by year or by client or a combination. You could have a 2019.pst file with individual folders for Client 1, Client 2 etc.

You don't really have all 50Gb in your inbox folder do you?

[ant1973]

Mr Pointy said:

You can also create Data Folders which are separate offline files with a .pst extension which you can move mail into. You can mount the file into Outlook so it appears in the left hand folder pane & the mail is still searchable & usable but doesn't clog up your mailstore. How you organise it depends on how you work - I used to file mail by project so at the end of a project I bundled all the relevant emails into a Project1.pst file where it can be backed up or copied as required. You could do it by year or by client or a combination. You could have a 2019.pst file with individual folders for Client 1, Client 2 etc.

You don't really have all 50Gb in your inbox folder do you?

I am afraid I do - pure laziness on my part! They are all stored in the PM system as well against jobs, in fairness.

[Mr Pointy]

ant1973 said:

I am afraid I do - pure laziness on my part! They are all stored in the PM system as well against jobs, in fairness.

I'm surprised it still works; Outlook used to get a bit iffy when the .ost file got over 2GB or so & could corrupt the file.

[illmonkey]

Mr Pointy said:

ant1973 said:

I am afraid I do - pure laziness on my part! They are all stored in the PM system as well against jobs, in fairness.

I'm surprised it still works; Outlook used to get a bit iffy when the .ost file got over 2GB or so & could corrupt the file.

From Outlook 2010 they support 50GB OST files if unicode.As long as it's not a really old OST file, it'll be fine for 50GB.

[ant1973]

Ok, so I switched on the auto archive and it duly removed all of the emails over 2 years old.

When I open outlook I can see "Online Archive" I can't see any emails...

Any ideas?

[illmonkey]

ant1973 said:

Ok, so I switched on the auto archive and it duly removed all of the emails over 2 years old.

When I open outlook I can see "Online Archive" I can't see any emails...

Any ideas?

Online archive is slow, as it's ... online. real time.

Also, if you've just set it to auto archive, it may take some time to sort itself out.

[ant1973]

illmonkey said:

ant1973 said:

Ok, so I switched on the auto archive and it duly removed all of the emails over 2 years old.

When I open outlook I can see "Online Archive" I can't see any emails...

Any ideas?

Online archive is slow, as it's ... online. real time.

Also, if you've just set it to auto archive, it may take some time to sort itself out.

My guess is that it's the latter and it might take a few hours to resolve. Cheers.

[Mr Pointy]

ant1973 said:

My guess is that it's the latter and it might take a few hours to resolve. Cheers.

I don't suppose you made a copy of your .ost file...

[ant1973]

Mr Pointy said:

I don't suppose you made a copy of your .ost file...

I have a *.pst backup from earlier in the year.

[ant1973]

Even weirder is the fact that web version of outlook still says my mailbox is full!

[buggalugs]

Auto Archive is not able to move emails to the 365 online archive, it can either move stuff to PST files or delete it, whichever it's set to in the Outlook options.

You can set retention policies in 365 to automatically move stuff to the online archive.

365 Online Archive is useful to get a bit more breathing room space wise. It's not indellible though. Something that works like Mimecast is good because it can be indellible, someone sends an email with critical info or agreement in it, then leaves, then 2 years later you need it again to resolve an ££££ important dispute. WTF is it? In Mimecast, that's where. Someone sends an email then deletes it for whatever reason (...) , it's still in Mimecast, etc etc.

Don't use PST files, it's not 1998 any more...

[ant1973]

buggalugs said:

Auto Archive is not able to move emails to the 365 online archive, it can either move stuff to PST files or delete it, whichever it's set to in the Outlook options.

You can set retention policies in 365 to automatically move stuff to the online archive.

365 Online Archive is useful to get a bit more breathing room space wise. It's not indellible though. Something that works like Mimecast is good because it can be indellible, someone sends an email with critical info or agreement in it, then leaves, then 2 years later you need it again to resolve an ££££ important dispute. WTF is it? In Mimecast, that's where. Someone sends an email then deletes it for whatever reason (...) , it's still in Mimecast, etc etc.

Don't use PST files, it's not 1998 any more...

Hopefully I have not made a silly mistake here.

I switched on archiving this morning. Anything two years and older disappeared from my inbox. I understood it would then appear in my personal archive per the article above?

[illmonkey]

ant1973 said:

buggalugs said:

Auto Archive is not able to move emails to the 365 online archive, it can either move stuff to PST files or delete it, whichever it's set to in the Outlook options.

You can set retention policies in 365 to automatically move stuff to the online archive.

365 Online Archive is useful to get a bit more breathing room space wise. It's not indellible though. Something that works like Mimecast is good because it can be indellible, someone sends an email with critical info or agreement in it, then leaves, then 2 years later you need it again to resolve an ££££ important dispute. WTF is it? In Mimecast, that's where. Someone sends an email then deletes it for whatever reason (...) , it's still in Mimecast, etc etc.

Don't use PST files, it's not 1998 any more...

Hopefully I have not made a silly mistake here.

I switched on archiving this morning. Anything two years and older disappeared from my inbox. I understood it would then appear in my personal archive per the article above?

Auto Archive is a setting in Outlook itself, that archives locally. I think buggalugs thinks you've done that.

But you've enabled an archive mailbox, in the O365 portal, which is correct.

[buggalugs]

ant1973 said:

Hopefully I have not made a silly mistake here.

I switched on archiving this morning. Anything two years and older disappeared from my inbox. I understood it would then appear in my personal archive per the article above?

Did you turn it on in Outlook by going to Options, Advanced, Auto Archive settings? It should say there what it's going to do with the emails, if it's got 'move emails to...' that's the PST file it's going to move them to, to find them again you'll need to open/add that to Outlook. PST's aren't ideal because they can get lost or corrupted as they're just based on your PC.

[buggalugs]

illmonkey said:

Auto Archive is a setting in Outlook itself, that archives locally. I think buggalugs thinks you've done that.

But you've enabled an archive mailbox, in the O365 portal, which is correct.

Yeah he did say 'auto archive', plus the instructions above only turn on the archive mailbox they don't move anything to it, so just turning the online archive on wouldn't make his old emails disappear. It's confusing because as well as the old auto archive feature to pst files you have an archive button in Outlook which moves things to an archive folder within your main mailbox.. and then there's the online archive which is separate again. Nice and clear for the users, not.

[illmonkey]

buggalugs said:

illmonkey said:

Auto Archive is a setting in Outlook itself, that archives locally. I think buggalugs thinks you've done that.

But you've enabled an archive mailbox, in the O365 portal, which is correct.

Yeah he did say 'auto archive', plus the instructions above only turn on the archive mailbox they don't move anything to it, so just turning the online archive on wouldn't make his old emails disappear. It's confusing because as well as the old auto archive feature to pst files you have an archive button in Outlook which moves things to an archive folder within your main mailbox.. and then there's the online archive which is separate again. Nice and clear for the users, not.

Fair point.

The guide does explain about the retention policy though.