Schedules and retention
Two settings: how often istorel backs up a mailbox, and how long backed-up messages are kept. The first is inherited from the account, the second is set per organisation.
Backup frequency
There are five values: every hour, every four hours, twice a day, once a day, once a week. A sixth, disabled, stops scheduled backups without deleting anything. What is already backed up stays readable.
A mailbox becomes due based on the date of its last successful backup, not on the number of runs it missed. If the service is stopped for three days, it makes a single backup when it restarts.
Where the setting comes from
istorel looks for the frequency on the mailbox first, then on its organisation, then on the account. If you remove a setting, the inherited one applies again. You do not need to copy it anywhere.
In Settings, the first block sets the default for the whole account, and the second sets it per organisation. On a mailbox, leave the field on « inherited » unless that mailbox needs a different frequency.
Choosing a frequency
Every four hours suits almost every mailbox. Use hourly for the few mailboxes where losing four hours of mail would really cost you, such as an order desk or an accounting mailbox.
For each organisation, the screen shows how many connections per day the setting will make to your mail server. Check it if you have many mailboxes: a host that sees eight hundred mailboxes connecting every hour will end up throttling them.
Retention
Each organisation has a retention period of 1, 2, 5 or 10 years. The default is 2 years, and the account administrator can change it in the organisation settings.
For that period, backed-up messages are locked in storage (S3 Object Lock, governance mode). Nobody can erase them from the application, by mistake or with a stolen password. An email deleted from your mail server stays in the backup, where you can find, read and download it.
Today, istorel deletes nothing, even once the period is over: messages stay in the backup beyond it.
A shorter period does not unlock messages that are already backed up. They keep the lock they were given when they were saved.
- It does not delete anything. Nothing is deleted today, even after the period.
- It does not limit search. The index stays complete and always available.
- It does not change your invoice. Storage is billed on what is stored, whatever its age.
- It does not outlive your account. Closing the account deletes its backups, as the terms of service set out.
Backing up on demand
Back up now, on the mailbox page, makes the mailbox due straight away. The scheduler picks it up on its next pass, within a minute. The button then waits thirty minutes before it accepts another request.
If the mailbox cannot be backed up, the button tells you why: no payment method, suspended account, paused mailbox, disabled schedule, or a run already in progress.