Setting up email storage in Carbonio

One of the simplest and most effective ways to optimize the size of mailboxes on a server is to configure the retention time for emails. Automatic deletion of emails after the configured storage period has expired allows users not to exceed the quota allocated to them without additional effort on their part, and the administrator accurately predicts the size of data stored on the server and, accordingly, correctly calculates the time for data backup and recovery. In this article we will talk about how exactly email storage policies are configured in Carbonio.

This article is suitable for both users of the free version of Carbonio Community Edition and users of the commercial version of Carbonio.

Email storage settings can be set at the individual user level or at the level of entire Service Classes. These settings will determine the guaranteed time for deleting any emails, while users themselves can determine the retention time for emails for each mail folder.

Storage settings for Class of Service can be configured in the Admin Console. To do this, go to the Classes of Service tab, select the CoS you need and go to Advanced settings. In the “Email retention policy” field, specify the number of days that emails should be retained.

Three options are available:

1. Mail message lifetime – defines the time after which incoming messages will be deleted

2. Time a message is stored in the Trash – defines the time after which messages moved to the trash will be deleted

3. Spam lifetime – defines the time after which letters placed in the Spam folder will be deleted

Note that the “Mail Message Lifetime” parameter has a hidden minimum value of 31 days. If a value is set below this, for example 14 days, the value of 31 days will be applied.

You can set mail retention settings for individual accounts on the command line using the following parameters, which correspond to the fields in the Administrator console:

1. zimbraMailMessageLifetime

2. zimbraMailSpamLifetime

3. zimbraMailTrashLifetime

To change these settings for a user, use the following commands:

• carbonio prov modifyAccount user@domain.ru zimbraMailMessageLifetime 60d

• carbonio prov modifyAccount user@domain.ru zimbraMailSpamLifetime 7d

• carbonio prov modifyAccount user@domain.ru zimbraMailTrashLifetime 14d

To change these settings for a Class of Service, use the commands

• carbonio prov modifyCos default zimbraMailMessageLifetime 60d

• carbonio prov modifyCos default zimbraMailSpamLifetime 7d

• carbonio prov modifyCos default zimbraMailTrashLifetime 14d

Eligible messages are deleted every minute by default. In case you want to increase this period, change the server parameter zimbraMailPurgeSleepInterval. For example:

carbonio prov modifyServer email.carbonio.loc zimbraMailPurgeSleepInterval 10m

After entering this command, the rules for storing letters in mailboxes on the specified servers will be applied once every 10 minutes.

Users themselves can configure the mail storage time, and do this separately for each mail folder. In order to open the corresponding settings, they will need to right-click on the required folder and select the “Edit” section from the drop-down menu.

There are two options available for configuration:

• Enable message storage – allows you to specify the interval during which, when deleting a letter, the user will be asked for additional confirmation

• Enable message deletion – allows you to specify the interval after which messages will be automatically deleted

With this setting, there are no hidden minimum values ​​and if the specified deletion interval is 7 days, then all messages older than 7 days will be automatically deleted.

You can set default storage settings on the command line using the following parameters:

• zimbraPrefInboxReadLifetime – setting the storage period for incoming read letters

• zimbraPrefInboxUnreadLifetime – setting the storage period for incoming unread emails

• zimbraPrefSentLifetime – setting the storage period for sent emails

• zimbraPrefJunkLifetime – setting the period for storing letters in the Spam folder

• zimbraPrefTrashLifetime – setting the period for storing letters in the Trash.

These options can be used for individual accounts or for entire Classes of Service.

Note that the ability to configure a separate retention period for messages for each mail folder, combined with the ability to configure mail filters, allows you to create folders with different retention periods for different mail. For example, for important letters, create a separate folder with a long or unlimited storage period, and for all other mail, set a fairly low mail storage threshold. It is worth considering that the user storage period for emails cannot be higher than that set by the administrator

Note that emails deleted using mail retention policies are completely deleted without going to the trash can, and they can only be restored using the Backup module included in the commercial version of Carbonio. Additionally, the retention period for emails in the drafts folder cannot be administratively configured from the command line. This must be done either by the user himself or by the administrator, using the View Mail function, which allows you to log into the user account and configure the retention period for it in the “Drafts” folder.

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Carbonio Community Edition is intended for small companies and testing purposes only