Archiving an email refers to the process of moving or directing an email from your main inbox to a separate or dedicated folder.
Unlike deleting, which permanently removes the email, archiving simply moves or saves it to a different location of your choosing for easy and quick retrieval.
As such, archiving becomes an easy way to store your important emails and organize your inbox all the while.
Advanced email providers even let you automate your email archiving, depending on the type and content of the emails.
While serving the same purpose, the process of archiving an email may yet differ depending on the email provider.
Email archiving is as simple as deleting, marking, or opening any email.
While it differs from provider to provider, most email providers come with a dedicated archive folder and option to store or move as many emails as you like.
Even if you use a default email app on your phone to access your emails, there will be some or other option to archive your emails.
For instance, to archive an email on your iPhone, all you need to do is swipe left on an email message on your inbox and choose the archive option. This will move the email to the “All Mail” folder, from where you can access it at a later time.
Similarly, Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, and so on also comes with dedicated archive options/folders to archive your emails on the go.
To check how you can archive your emails across major email platforms, click here.
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Benefits of email archiving
1.Storage management
Archiving emails from the main inbox can free up a lot of space from the primary email server. By moving your important emails to dedicated folders, you can easily bulk delete the rest of the main inbox without having to worry about accidentally deleting anything important.
2.Cost reduction
Regularly archiving your important emails also reduces the load on the primary server. Thus, the cost associated with maintaining the hardware and software.
At the same time, it helps retrieve emails much faster without having to manually search for them every time.
3.Data retention
As you can see, by letting you locate and retrieve your vital emails, email archiving helps you manage all your important email communications with ease.
With proper email preservation, businesses can be in a far better place to continue their operations during system failures and sudden employee departures.
4.Regulatory compliance
As you go about archiving your important emails from time to time, you will also meet the regulatory compliance for data retention as per your industry standards.
Plus, it helps retrieve emails for legal work, audits, or investigations whenever you want.
5.Decluttering and organization
Perhaps the greatest practical advantage of archiving emails is the decluttering of your emails for a more organized inbox at any given time.
By moving important emails to separate archive folders, you can better manage your company’s email inbox for other users and employees.
6.Better access and productivity
With a better access to all your email communications, you can save a lot of time and improve your productivity and efficiency all the while.
7.Automation
Modern email services even let you automate your email archiving to some degree by implementing a variety of filters, whether default or custom-made.
At the same, there are many third-party tools and email extensions that you can use to further archive your important emails.
For example: Clean Email, an online inbox management tool that lets you archive, delete, or label emails in bulk for better automation and email management.
Powered by smart AI algorithms, Clean Email can analyze different emails based on their type, headers, content, etc, to automatically archive them into dedicated folders.
8.Multiple locations.
Archived emails can be saved across various locations depending on your business operations.
For instance, cloud archiving, on-site archiving, and mail server archiving which can be accessed from anywhere at any point in time.
This makes it a particularly useful feature for businesses who cannot afford to lose their email data even in times of natural disasters and cyberthreats.
Needless to say, to make the most of it, implementing the right archiving strategies is of utmost importance.
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Tips for email archiving
1.Archive emails to different locations.
When archiving, it is crucial to save or archive your emails into different and separate folders based on their type and content.
Businesses might even want to store their email data in different formats in multiple locations to further enhance their privacy and protection against any data theft or loss.
2.Opt for a reliable archiving tool or software
There are many email archiving tools and software out there other than the basic default archiving feature that most email providers come with.
Packed with all kinds of email management features, these tools let you automate the process of archiving based on your preferences and business requirements.
So, if you deal with an overwhelming number of emails every day, it would be better to have a dedicated archiving tool at your disposal.
Some of the most popular email archiving solutions that you can choose from include Mimecast Cloud Archive, Exchange Online Archiving, Google Vault, and MailStore.
3.Stick to industry-specific standards and regulations.
As important as it is to have a reliable archiving tool for your emails, knowing what are the dos and don’ts of email archiving is equally important.
A few common industry-specific guidelines to be wary of are HIPAA, GDPR, and FINRA.
All-in-all, ensuring that your company’s email archiving policies align with the rules and regulations is crucial for avoiding any fines and legal ramifications.
4.Ensure an easy and intuitive navigation.
While it may sound somewhat technical, email archiving is one of the simplest ways to filter and move your emails to different locations.
Therefore, when choosing an email archiving solution for your business, you must look for a user-friendly tool that offers quick and easy navigation to search and retrieve an email.
5.Start archiving as soon as possible.
To ensure proper archiving, you must begin the process as soon as you set up your email account. As a result, you won’t have to manually search and back up an overwhelming number of important emails later on.
Also, make sure to regularly archive your emails by automating or setting up proper archiving schedules.
6.Consider scalability
Last but not least, when selecting an archiving solution for your business, you must always take into account the matter of scalability as your company grows and expands.
That is, as the volume of your business emails increase, you will also need an archiving solution that can offer scalability and flexibility against it.
Conclusion
While email archiving is a simple technique of moving/storing important emails into different dedicated folders, on a deeper level, it is much more than that.
To be specific, by regularly archiving your emails, you can easily access or retrieve them when needed while freeing up a lot of space from your main email server.
As a default feature, most email providers provide the archive option in the form of an intuitive icon or text button that you can use to archive an email.
You can also create separate folders for different types of emails to conveniently archive them in the right location.
Plus, with advanced email providers and archiving tools, you can even automate and schedule the archiving process so you won’t have to do it manually.
