Archiving is particularly useful for mail databases if you have set user preferences to automatically save a copy of messages you send in the Sent view, causing your mail database to increase in size. You and create folders and put messages in them to organize your mail, but this doesn't decrease the size of your mail database. Archiving frees up space and improves the performance of your mail.

To run archiving in a mail file, you must have at least editor access with delete rights and own the mail file. If you are not the owner of the mail file, you must have Manager access with delete rights to the mail file.

Access to archiving for mail

If your organization sets an archiving policy for mail databases, the policy controls how much access you have to archiving in mail. You may not need to archive at all because archiving is set up and run on your behalf. Or, the policy may specify that you can establish private archive criteria in addition to the archiving your organization performs.

You can tell how much access you have to archiving mail by opening the Archive Settings dialog box.

For more information, see Administration policies for archiving mail.

Private mail archiving -- Process overview

If you have access to archive your mail privately, here is the process that you need to follow:

1. Basics -- Specify the computers where archiving runs and where the archive is stored. You can set the archive process to be performed either by your Mail server (server-based archiving), so that you don't need to leave your computer on while archiving runs, or by the Notes client software (client-based archiving) on your computer so that you can have more control over the schedule. If the archive process is performed by your Notes client, you can store the archive database locally or on any server to which you have access. If the process is performed by your Mail server, you can store the archive database only on a server to which you have access.

2. Criteria -- Create and enable a set of archive "criteria"(information that Notes will use during archiving) for the archive database about to be created. A criteria set includes information on which documents will be archived, the file name and path of the archive database, and your selections for mail file cleanup options.

1. Documents -- Choose which documents to archive based on activity and on folder selection. For example, you can set a criteria for archiving documents that have not been modified in more than 365 days. You can then archive all documents that match that criteria, or you can archive only documents in specific folders that match that criteria.
2. Destination -- Choose whether to copy selected documents to an archive database you specify, or to just clean up your mail by deleting the documents.
3. Mail file cleanup -- Set cleanup options for your mail by deleting archived documents or reducing them in size. You can reduce the size of the document by first removing attachments, and then leaving only the header information or leaving the header information and a portion of the mail document.

4. Schedule -- For client-based archiving, set a schedule for when archiving will occur, or archive whenever you want by choosing Actions - Archive - Archive Now. (For server-based archiving, archiving will occur according to the server's scheduling -- you will have no control over when it runs.) When the archive database has been created, you can bookmark it, delete it, copy it, or perform other tasks with it as you would any other database.

Note If your criteria specifies that only documents manually selected by you will be archived, the above step does not apply. First select the documents, and then choose Actions - Archive - Selected Documents.

See the procedure Creating or editing a set of archive criteria. Steps in this procedure will branch to the all the other procedures that you need to complete in order to archive your mail privately.

See Also

Specifying the computers where archiving runs and where the archive is stored
Managing and enhancing your mail
Saving documents in an archive to free up space
Deleting mail
Exporting documents into text files

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