What Does Archiving an Email Do

Novica Gijevski
Cybersecurity Science
4 min readJan 18, 2023

Archiving an email is the practice of organizing emails in a mailbox by moving them out of the inbox and into a separate folder. Archiving is different from deleting an email, as archiving an email does not actually delete the message. Instead, it simply removes it from the inbox.

This allows users to search for and access emails more easily, as all archived emails are stored in one place. Additionally, to explain what archiving an email does, we need to look at the specific practice and how organizations use archiving solutions.

However, email archiving provides users with certain benefits, such as saving emails. Moreover, email archiving is often used in corporate environments or other scenarios where emails must be archived for legal or compliance reasons.

This guide will go over email archiving and the uses for an archived message. We will also explain the benefits of employing third-party email archiving solutions. So with all that said, let’s start.

What Is Email Archiving?

Email archiving is the process of collecting, preserving, and storing emails for long-term retention. It is a form of digital record-keeping that follows certain industry standards. As a result, email archiving is central to compliance with industry regulations and data privacy requirements.

The practice or process helps organizations protect their mission-critical data by reducing storage costs, improving system performance, and maintaining secure access for authorized users.

Using an email archiving solution is becoming a mainstay in modern business. Since businesses handle all kinds of data, archived messages are a simple way of keeping the mailbox clean and tidy.

These messages go into a specific mail folder, called the archive folder, which stays there for a prolonged period, usually depending on the organization’s needs.

Let’s find out the uses for keeping archived messages.

Uses For Keeping Archived Email Messages

Archiving emails is a powerful way for users to store and organize their messages. Storing emails through archiving keeps sent, received, and drafted messages in a designated folder.

This allows users to access the emails quickly and easily, instead of having them mix in with their current emails. Archiving also serves as a backup of important emails in case they need to be retrieved later on. The biggest use of these “backup emails” is in case of litigation.

The messages can be used for litigation support, and an organization can present them whenever the need for legal compliance emerges. This last use is possibly the most important one.

Although it’s handy to keep important but historical messaging data in a separate folder to declutter your inbox folder, legal compliance is a far more important use for email archiving.

So, remember that archived messages don’t appear anywhere in your inbox’s most frequently used folders, such as the trash folder, inbox folder, draft folder, etc.

Therefore, every organization must integrate an email archiving solution into their email client. Let’s go over the benefits of doing so.

3 Benefits of Using an Email Archiving Solution

Email archiving solutions are becoming increasingly popular. With these solutions, businesses make it possible to archive messages, retrieve archived emails, and even designate a specific mail label to specific messages.

But the uses of these solutions are far greater than that. Let’s go over the main benefits of using an email archiving solution.

Creating Backups of Important Data

Email data is highly important in the modern day. Since businesses mainly communicate with clients through email, there are few better ways to create backups of email data than by archiving critical emails.

That’s precisely why archiving is considered standard practice. Instead of deleting messages, organizations can archive emails and keep archive emails separated through an email archive solution.

Free Up Valuable Storage Space

Email storage management can be a hassle. Organizations that communicate primarily through email will see their storage space clogged up in no time.

Your email client will ask you to delete certain messages when that happens. No organization wants to manage storage by deleting mail.

Ideally, you want to back up those messages or, better yet, archive them. That way, organizations not only keep the archived data but also ensure email archiving compliance.

Through the use of cloud-based email archiving, archived messages will be kept on the cloud and secured in case of accidental deletion and disasters.

This makes email archiving solutions ideal for disaster recovery.

Enhance Search Capabilities

Even if you archive your emails, there are not that many ways to manually search for a specific message in your archive folder. Fortunately, there is a way if you employ third-party solutions.

These solutions consider the biggest drawbacks of native archiving solutions and base their product around eliminating them.

One such issue is the basic search capabilities. With these solutions, organizations get access to a tool that comes with enhanced search capabilities and instant message recovery capabilities.

That way, organizations can always search for specific folders and recover them in a matter of seconds.

Conclusion

In conclusion, email archiving is a must-have tool for any organization. It helps to ensure that emails are backed up and protected while also freeing up valuable storage space.

Additionally, it allows users to access emails quickly and efficiently without having to scroll through hundreds of pages of emails. As a result, email archiving is an invaluable asset for all businesses.

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Novica Gijevski
Cybersecurity Science

Novica Gijevski delivers unmatched reliability and is a well-experienced professional for business with an indicated performance record.