Whether you host your email with Redtail or use us for archiving only, one of the benefits of this service is being able to make a request for a backup of this data. Oftentimes this is requested for compliance/regulatory needs or when moving to a new archive/hosting provider. Whatever the reason may be, we are here to help with the process!
When you request that we pull a backup of your data, we pull this information from the archive itself, rather than from the mailbox structure within your active account. This means that when you receive the data, all mail ever sent/received by that user will be in one folder labeled with the account name. There is no separation between the inbound and outbound mail or mail that was read/unread: it contains all mail. It even includes mail that any user may have deleted from their mailbox. The archive cannot be edited or manipulated, so once an email passes through any mailbox and copies to the archive, it is available within the backup.
Understanding your backup request options
- Everything in the archive
- This is simple and straightforward; it is a request for all data we hold in the archive across all accounts in the domain for any time period the data falls in. There is no filtering on this request — we pull and package all data for you. If we hosted your email, you have an additional option to receive a file per account hosted or a file for the entire domain with each user separated by a folder within the file.
- Specific Dates
- You can request that we pull all data on the domain within specific date ranges. This is a common request for regulatory audits as they tend to have specific time periods they are looking into.
- Specific Accounts
- This is if you only want the backup from specific users in the domain. If your domain has had several accounts over the years but your backup request is only for a portion of those users, we can provide that if we were the email host at the time.
- Specific Correspondence Requests
- If you need a backup of all email conversations with only a select list of specific addresses, we can usually accomplish this with a few exceptions:
- If an address was BCC’d it is not indexed on our end in a way where we can pull out that specific correspondence. The email would still be in a full backup request, but we would not produce it upon filtering/searching for the BCC’d address in a backup pull of this type. If this is a compliance audit request, you will need a full backup to get this data.
- These requests take longer to pull due to the additional filtering running on our end. If this is an urgent request we do not suggest pulling specific address correspondence. Instead, use the date range or account requests.
- We can only filter out a limited number of addresses per backup; please limit these requests to under 20 specific addresses in a backup.
- If you need a backup of all email conversations with only a select list of specific addresses, we can usually accomplish this with a few exceptions:
Once you have determined what data needs to be pulled for the backup, we need to know what file format you need to receive the data in. Which file type you need depends on what program you plan to use to open/import/review the data.
File Types
- PST
- This can be opened with the Outlook mail program on your PC (please note this cannot be used to open data in Outlook for Mac)
- EML
- These are individual files for each email and they can be opened with a large number of programs such as Outlook (PC or MAC), Mac Mail, Windows Mail App, Thunderbird, etc.
- Other
- If you need another file type not listed above, please contact us to go over what you need. If we have the tools to accomplish it, we will accommodate your needs!
If you are making your email backup request for the purpose of fulfilling a regulatory audit, please make sure to communicate any deadlines to our support team so we can assure you have your data to you in time!
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