Email archiving solutions automatically store copies of email content, meta-data, and attachments in a safe and immutable database, from which they can be searched and retrieved when needed. There are several reasons it’s important for organizations to deploy an email archiving solution; storage to comply with data protection regulations, maintaining business continuity, and internal auditing are all common reasons for implementing email archiving services.
Investing in email archiving is a necessity for many organizations, particularly those in regulated industries such as healthcare, legal services, and the government sector. But implementing email archiving can be a challenging process. The average office worker sends and receives over 100 emails every single day – which is a lot of data to store, organize, and filter through in the case of a compliance incident requiring investigation.
Implementing a dedicated email archiving solution makes the process a lot easier. These solutions automatically store immutable copies of all incoming, outbound, and internal email messages, and provide a centralized, searchable dashboard for users to access historical email data.
To help you find the right email archiving solution for your organization, we’ve reviewed the best email archiving solutions available today. In this article we’ll cover the pros and cons, features, and functionality of each solution to help you shortlist the best email archiving solution for your business.
ArcTitan is a comprehensive email archiving solution designed for use with Office 365 that allows users to easily and securely store and search emails. ArcTitan stores all archived emails in an encrypted and tamper-proof archive, ensuring they are protected against data-loss. ArcTitan provides powerful searching and e-Discovery, allowing emails in the archive to be searched in a matter of seconds and retrieved instantly when needed. ArcTitan is a strong archiving solution for organizations, offering automatic back-ups, cloud-based storage and easy data recovery, with cost-effective pricing.
ArcTitan provides full compliance with industry standards, including GDPR. Emails can be easily searched and retrieved, and are fully immutable when stored in the email archive. Pricing is flexible and based on a ‘pay-as-you-go’ model, and ArcTitan promises to help organizations save up to 75% on email storage space, reducing the costs and storage on mail servers. ArcTitan is simple to deploy and manage. Admins can configure the system from within the Outlook client, and easily edit retention policies and mailbox quotas. Searching the archive itself is also straightforward, with a search console that makes it easy to locate the right emails on both desktop and mobile.
ArcTitan provides a number of benefits over native archiving within Office 365, including enhanced email search and storage, reduced complexity and reduced time spent on deployment and ongoing management. Customers praise ArcTitan for its speed, scalability, and the fact the service has no storage limitations, helping to save on archiving costs. This also means that ArcTitan is a strong solution for organizations looking to store large amounts of email, such as schools and universities. ArcTitan is an easy to manage archiving solution, which we recommend to SMBs, enterprises and MSPs who are looking for comprehensive archiving available both on-premise and in the cloud.
The ComplyKEY MailMeter Email Archiving, and eDiscovery service is an email archiving and compliance solution that provides archiving, eDiscovery and storage management. With ComplyKEY MailMeter, you can easily find and analyze past emails in seconds, with an accessible dashboard and granular searching options.With MailMeter, you can easily find and analyze past emails in seconds, with an accessible dashboard and granular searching options. This includes email content and attachments, with tagging options to make finding specific clusters of email easier. MailMeter is well suited for organizations that need to perform frequent email searches, with eDiscovery, analysis and export capabilities. MailMeter provides a number of archiving and compliance solutions, delivered in one comprehensive package which is easy to deploy and manage.
MailMeter is fully legally compliant, with eDiscovery, retention and legal hold features that ensure all emails are securely stored, searchable and tamper-proof. Users are able to search past emails in seconds, filtering by sender, message content, message tags (which can be customized), attachments and more. This search tool is available for both admins and end users and is easy to use without any additional training, allowing users to quickly find past emails that have been lost or accidentally deleted. Retention policies can be set for users, departments, key phrases within emails and attachments to help organizations easily meet their compliance obligations.
MailMeter is available both on-premise and in the cloud, and is a strong solution for archiving emails within Office 365. The service helps to reduce costs for O365 users, as it works with all licenses, rather than the more expensive E3 or E5 licenses which are typically required for archiving. It also helps to reduce complexity and data-loss when archiving within O365, due to the restricted retention policies natively offered by Microsoft. MailMeter also provides high-quality technical support, with responsive support teams dedicated to the US, Europe and the Middle East. MailMeter offer a strong archiving service, well suited to organizations of all sizes looking for a comprehensive archiving solution for compliance, public records and eDiscovery on email messages.
Libraesva offers a range of products designed to protect organizations against sophisticated email threats and ensure compliance. Their product suite includes a Secure Email Gateway, a security awareness training platform and next-gen email archiving. Libraesva Email Archiver is their archiving solution that protects business critical information against data loss while simplifying compliance and governance processes.
Libraesva Email Archiver creates copies of all user emails and stores them in a central archive to ensure the security of corporate data in the event of a breach or natural event resulting in data loss. To ensure security and compliance with data protection regulations, Libraesva timestamps each archived email and encrypts it via AES 256-bit encryption, protecting the data store against tampering. Organizations can choose whether to store their archived data on local disks, network disks or in object storage, with full S3 compatibility and support for on-premises virtual appliances. And no matter where data is stored, the Outlook Add-In features enables users to seamlessly access archived emails without having to log in to a separate portal.
Libraesva offers flexible cloud and on-prem deployment options and integrates with all mail servers, including Office 365 and Microsoft Exchange. This enables all organizations to utilize Libraesva’s email archiving platform, no matter their state of cloud migration. We recommend Libraesva Email Archiver to any sized organization looking to implement email archiving for security and compliance, and particularly those that may also wish to utilize Libraesva’s SEG and awareness training platform within their email security stack. We also recommend the solution to MSPs wanting to add email archiving to their product offering, as Libraesva offers native multi-tenant management.
Proofpoint Essentials Email Archive is a comprehensive email archiving platform for SMBs. This solution is delivered as part of Proodpoint’s Essentials package, a multi-layered email security and compliance stack which includes email protection, encryption, archiving and continuity, delivered as a single platform, with a single admin console.
Proofpoint have an unparalleled visibility into email threats with their global threat intelligence platform. Proofpoint collect and analyse more than 100 billion data points a day from more than 100 million email boxes, 200 million social-media accounts, and 7 million mobile apps. Proofpoint secure more than 50% of the Fortune 100, the top 5 banks globally and 7 of the top 10 global retailers.
Proofpoint Essentials Email Archive is highly secure, and offers quick performance when searching through email content, with configurable legal hold and retention policies. Emails are held for up to 10 years, with no limits on storage. End users are able to accesses their own archived emails, but not edit them, on desktop or mobile. In addition, admins can configure a range of retention policies to ensure legal compliance.
Proofpoint Essentials Email Archive is popular with customers for ease of use, and ease of deployment, in particular for O365 users. The service is cost-effective when considering the advanced features on offer. We recommend this service for SMBs and organizations of all sizes, particularly those looking to deploy email archiving alongside a leading inbound email security platform.
You can read our full review of Proofpoint Enterprise Archive here.
Mimecast is a leading email security and compliance provider, protecting more than 40,000 customers globally with threat protection, security awareness training and data retention solutions. Mimecast Cloud Archive is a secure, cloud-based archiving solution that ensures compliance and continuity, covering both email data and Microsoft Teams data. Fully integrated into Mimecast’s leading email security platform, the Mimecast Cloud Archive provides a robust central repository for storing email messages.
The Mimecast Cloud Archive is highly scalable, with fast performance and maximized availability and uptime. Mimecast provides comprehensive search tools so users can quickly find email content and specific data when required, with file recovery tools to help recover data which may have been corrupted or lost. Alongside email content, the platform stores meta-data (including time of sending, location, and device), along with Outlook folders, calendars, and contacts.
The archive is highly secure, reducing the risk of compromise and helping ensure compliance with data protection regulations. Admins can view audits and reports showcasing who has accessed the archive, and when. In addition to email data, Mimecast also archives Microsoft Teams data, including one-to-one, group, and channel conversations. Mimecast also supports proactive scanning for compliance breaches with Microsoft Supervision: a security tool that continuously monitors email communications for potential compliance risks.
Mimecast supports compliance with SEC, FINRA, and HIPAA, and is a strong choice for enterprises looking for a compliant solution, with an easy-to-manage, scalable archive with almost real-time searching functionality. We particularly recommend this solution for organizations currently using, or considering, Mimecast’s powerful email security platform. The solutions are tightly integrated and are a strong option to consider for email security and management.
You can read our full review of the Mimecast Cloud Archive here.
Global Relay provides leading archiving, e-Discovery and compliance management solutions for digital communications. Their platform is used by over 20,000 organizations globally, including 22 of the top 25 banks. The Global Relay Archive is a comprehensive all-in-one data archive that integrates with cloud-based email clients, instant messaging solutions, mobile operating systems, social media channels, and web applications to automatically store and archive message data.
Global Relay offers a fully comprehensive data archiving platform. It provides secure archiving for virtually any type of major electronic message, immediately storing an immutable copy of the message and contextual meta-data. Global Relay also provides a comprehensive e-Discovery and legal hold feature; users can quickly find historical data in a clear-easy-to use dashboard that displays key message details at a glance, no matter the original communication platform. Global Relay uses AI systems to reconstruct conversations and provide contextual details on message history.
The platform also integrates with your corporate directory, which enables it to create a dynamic record of organizational structures, and who has access to what data. Global Relay is compliant with SEC, FINRA, IIROC, FCA, SOX, HIPAA, MiFID II, and GDPR, and provides comprehensive audit logging for tracking access to the archive. Each archived item is encrypted with a unique AES key to ensure the security of the stored data.
Global Relay is a strong choice particularly for organizations in regulated industries such as banking, legal services, healthcare, finance, government, and education. The solution provides highly secure, compliant archiving for over 50 communications apps, with rapid e-Discovery and a clear, easy-to-use admin console.
You can read the full review we’ve published on Global Relay here.
Barracuda is a leading cybersecurity provider covering email, networks, data, and cloud-applications for more than 150,000 organizations worldwide. Barracuda’s Cloud Archiving Service enables teams to archive and retain searchable copies of all emails for as long as needed. Emails are automatically archived, with no storage limits for Microsoft 365, and granular retention policy options.
Barracuda Cloud Archiving provides comprehensive e-Discovery features, with a fully indexed, searchable archive for quickly and easily finding email messages. Emails can be searched, filtered, and tagged for ease-of-use. The archive is role-based and select email messages can be placed on legal hold for as long as needed before being exported to compliance or auding teams.
A key benefit of this solution is that end-users can also view their archived email content at any time, via a M365 plugin. This allows them to view all of their archived data, from whichever device they use – for example, to find details of an order or booking received months previously. The solution is fully cloud-based and easy to deploy.
Barracuda Cloud Archiving is delivered as part of Barracuda’s complete email archiving solution: Barracuda Email Protection. This consolidated security stack combines cloud archiving with a leading email security and inbox protection solution, and cloud-to-cloud backup for Microsoft 365. We’d recommend organizations looking to implement an integrated email protection and email archiving solution for M365 to consider shortlisting Barrcuda’s archiving solution.
You can read our full review of Barracuda Cloud Archive here.
Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving is a cloud-based, enterprise email archiving solution designed to work natively with Microsoft 365. It’s available for certain Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft 365 plans, and for organizations that have deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2019, 2016, and 2013. As a native Microsoft platform, the service is very easy to deploy, and is an easy add-on to your existing Microsoft 365 plan.
Microsoft provides offers advanced archiving features for emails sent via M365 and Exchange Online. This includes an “archived” mailbox that appears in the user’s primary mailbox folder within Outlook. Users can access and search this mailbox as easily as they would their non-archived email content. Users can easily restore emails they have deleted from their email content directly from the archive, back into their inbox.
Exchange Online Archiving offers retention policies, legal hold, e-Discovery, encryption, and auditing features for compliance. Admins can configure retention policies for folders, conversations, and individual messages. Individual users and mailbox items can be placed on legal hold, which prevents tampering, and items can be held for an indefinite amount of time. Admins can search a variety of mailbox items, including emails, attachments, contacts, calendar details, and tasks, with filtering capabilities and keyword-based searching. Full administrator audit logging is provided.
Microsoft offers a strong archiving solution, which is an ideal platform for organizations using M365 that require an archiving function, without having the full compliance use-case to need to invest in a third-party solution. The platform is cost-effective, easy-to-manage, and makes it very easy for end-users to access their own email archive within Outlook.
You can read Expert Insights’ full review of Microsoft here.
Proofpoint is the world’s largest email security provider, with annual revenues of over $1bn USD. They secure more than half of the Fortune 100 and the top 5 banks globally with a leading email security service. Proofpoint offers a family of integrated compliance and data archiving solutions, helping enterprise teams to stay compliant and manage information risk. Proofpoint Archive is a cloud-based archiving service that enables legal discovery and end-user archive access.
Proofpoint Archive supports a wide range of data types, including email, social media data, SMS messages, and other enterprise collaboration data. Admins are able to configure and enforce granular policies for different data types to match specific regulations, which are customizable across different geographies. Policies are easy to set up and manage. Data is stored in a secure, searchable archive, which is very easy to use. Search results are returned extremely quickly, with self-service functionality for end-users, and the ability to export data to multiple file formats.
Proofpoint’s dashboard is modern and provides insights and visualization, with key graphs, charts, and dashboards to help compliance teams better manage compliance risks. Proofpoint also enables an automated legal hold process, with full reporting and audit trail. Legal teams can retain data from the archive even beyond assigned retention periods, and search through content placed on legal hold.
Proofpoint Archive is a comprehensive enterprise archiving tool. It covers email data but goes far beyond just the email channel. The dashboard is highly responsive and easy-to-use, with granular functionality for risk and compliance teams. Proofpoint Archive is also available as a managed service. This is a strong option to consider for large enterprise teams requiring comprehensive archiving and compliance management.
Smarsh is a dedicated archiving and compliance management provider that provides archiving solutions for over 100 digital communications channels. Smarsh’s cloud-based archiving solutions are used by regulated organizations of all sizes globally, including the top banks in North America, Europe, and Asia. Smarsh supports the capture and archive of almost all corporate communications data across email, mobile, voice, instant messaging, and the web.
Smarsh supports all popular email platforms and is easily deployed to any service via their journaling platform. Smarsh captures all email content, including attachments, in their native format. Images and documents can be also viewed and downloaded in their original form. The platform categorizes emails based on whether they were sent internally or externally, and whether they were inbound or outbound in relation to the user.
The archive includes a fast search engine, with granular features to help compliance teams quickly find email messages and data. Admins can configure supervision policies to highlight risks and content can be exported from the archive at any time, in multiple file formats. Smarsh also integrates with identity platforms in order to help track profiles across the email archive. End users are able to access their own historical email content, with Smarsh’s Personal Archive feature.
Smarsh delivers a comprehensive suite of compliance, archiving, and risk management solutions, including hosting, encryption, and more. Smarsh is an ideal platform to consider for regulated organizations looking for a one-stop-shop to deploy compliance and risk mitigation services.
Email Archiving: Everything You Need To Know (FAQs)
What Is Email Archiving?
Email archiving is the system of storing your email communication so they can later be retrieved, typically for legal and auditing purposes.
Email archiving solutions allow you to store tamper-proof, immutable copies of each and every email your organization sends and receives. Most email archiving solutions capture email content directly from the email client itself, or during transport, so the entire process occurs without any added work for IT teams or end users. These emails are stored separately to your main email client so that if you change company email systems, delete every email in your inbox, or your company network is wiped, you’ll still have copies of all your original emails.
Many email archives today are cloud-based, allowing you to access your stored emails from any device, at any time. They often also include e-discovery features, which allow you to search the archive for specific emails by attributes such as recipient, sender, time, attachment type, and subject.
Once you have found the emails you are looking for, or even if you need to bulk export every email from a particular month for example, archiving solutions make it easy to restore past emails and attachments.
How Does Email Archiving Work?
Typically, third-party email archiving solutions work via the process journaling. Email journaling records all communications within the email archiving solution. The journaling system creates copies of all email messages and stores them in a secure, searchable database. This process can be customized based on your organization’s specific journaling and retention policies.
When deploying an email archiving solution to your email environment, for example Microsoft 365, you need to add a journaling rule in the admin center, which tells your email provider (e.g., Microsoft) to send emails to your chosen archiving database. Most email archiving solutions provide an in-depth guide to deployment based on specific steps required.
However, there are many different approaches to email archiving, and the specifics of how email archiving works can differ based on the approach used. Many users will be familiar with the email archiving functionality offered natively within Microsoft Outlook or Google Mail, in which archived emails are sent to a separate Archive folder. But this use case is meant for end-users to manage their emails more effectively, not for IT departments or compliance use cases.
Where Do Archived Emails Go?
When an end-user archives an email in Outlook or Google Mail, it is removed from their inbox and placed in a separate folder. From there, archived emails can be deleted or moved back to the inbox. Without an additional third-party email archiving solution, this does not ensure archived messages are kept secure and immutable.
When using an enterprise email archiving solution, a copy of every single inbound, outbound, or internal email is stored in a secure repository, where emails can be searched, placed on legal hold, and recovered. Meta-data and attachments can also be viewed.
This repository is usually cloud-based and accessible by admins, auditors, and legal compliance teams. Sometimes the cloud-archive can also be accessed by end-users, who can use the service to search through their own archive and view messages that have been lost or accidentally deleted.
Why Should You Archive Emails?
There are several reasons that organizations should archive emails, particularly those in heavily regulated industries such as legal services, healthcare, government, and finance.
Common reasons for implementing email archiving tools include:
- Regulatory Compliance: Many industries must keep copies of internal and external correspondence to demonstrate compliance with regulations governing corporate communications and data protection. Email archiving ensures that email content cannot be deleted, corrupted, or tampered with – accidentally or intentionally. This minimizes the risk of fines for breach of compliance regulations.
- e-Discovery: In the case of an investigation, either internally or externally, it’s important for auditors to be able to quickly find content associated with particular employees or groups. This can be difficult with the native functionality offered by many email systems. Email archiving provides comprehensive e-Discovery functionality, enabling teams to quickly search, filter, and export email content going back several years.
- Internal Audits: Internal auditing and investigations are critical process for HR, risk, and compliance teams. Auditors need an easy way to search email content in the case of a workplace investigation, with transparent auditing to ensure that data is being accessed in a compliant way. Email archiving provides the functionality on both counts, allowing teams to find email content, and highlighting who has accessed email data.
- Business Continuity: Human error, tech unreliability, cyberthreats, and natural disasters can all upend careful planning and lead to data loss, which can be hugely damaging to business processes and continuity. Nobody wants to suddenly find they have lost hundreds of emails and contacts. A secure, centralized archive held on a third-party system can help to ensure you always have a backup available in case of disaster.
What Features Should You Look For In An Email Archiving Solution?
Email archiving solutions should be optimized for easy deployment, hands-off management, and fast search and retrieval when required. Key features to look for in an email archiving solution include:
- Automated storage of all email and attachments
- Folder and meta-data archiving
- Compliance with key data protection and retention regulations
- Fast search and granular filter options
- e-Discovery and legal hold
- End user archive access
- Retention and storage policies
- Reports and risk assessments
- Low data storage costs
- Secure email archive with MFA controls and access logs
- Support for archiving other communications data, e.g., Teams chats
- Secure data protection policies, such as encryption
- Clear deployment steps with effective support and documentation
When looking to implement an email archiving solution, organizations must build out a comprehensive strategy, outlining specific requirements such as retention policies and key data compliance regulations to follow. Combining this with the above features will help teams to ensure a successful email archiving deployment.
