Topic: Prevent deleting of emails (legal reasons)

[Chris Snow]

Does anyone know if/how the SME (5.6) can be configured to that sent and received emails never get deleted from the server?

Would POP have to be disabled?  How?

TIA.

Chris

[Bob]

Hmm maybe someone else has a better idea but why not run a 2nd e-mail server that forwards all mail to and from your domain and retains a copy locally. That way your users can keep their inboxes / sent folders tidy while you keep a copy of all mail on the second server.

[Leon Uys]

For sent mail only (we are unable to do the same for incoming/received email) we use a Template on our Outlook (Win98 PC's) that automatically sends a cc copy to "archive at domain". Once every period we open that "archive" mailbox and do the necessary cleanup. It works quite well.

[David Woolley]

>>For sent mail only (we are unable to do the same for incoming/received email) .

I have a pc at each of two locations (office and home) each running a mail client polling the same pop server.  Both pcs have a full record of all movement in the email account because my reply template makes a bcc to myself.  So which ever machine I use to reply, my reply ends up arriving at both machines.  Incoming message filters move messages to helpful folders and my "sent mail" folder is irrelevant (because of the bcc copies) so messages in "sent mail" are deleted when 7 days old.  This also has the effect of threading my replies with the original messages.

You could do the same, but leave an "archiving" machine untouched.

Hope this helps

David

[Michael Smith]

Don't know about outgoing, but for incoming, you can configure each user's email properties to "deliver locally and forward to" and have the forwarding be to a catchall address, which you empty periodically.  Kinda kludgy, and would make things complicated if a user actually NEEDED forwarding, but it'd work.

[Maggard]

Not a technical issue but be sure to run such capturing/archiving past your legal folks also. In many jurisdictions employees, even using employer-supplied tools, do have some privacy expectations. Don't rely on some written policy in a HR manual to completely over-ride this, make sure you are actually complying with the specific requirements in your locale.

Back on the technical side consider also how you're going to store and search through this material, how you're going to identify what needs and need not be saved, how eventually the information is going to be destroyed. Keep in mind the first thing that happens now in a lawsuit is all relevant emails are subpoened. You'll need to be able to produce such in a timely manner, hopefully without putting undue burdon on your staff & systems. Incorporating such versatility in upfront will save you from a possibly painful, expensive, and potentially legally damaging retrievial/destruction project later.

[Michael Smith]

You might also have a look at Zoe:

http://guests.evectors.it/zoe/itstories/home.php?data=stories
http://zoe.sourceforge.net

A very interesting piece of software indeed!
Maintains a sort-of database of all emails, outgoing
& incoming.  A bit opaque documentation-wise,
but quite effective.