4 questions about using Zimbra

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LRAfriyie
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Joined: Mon Feb 06, 2023 3:09 am

4 questions about using Zimbra

Post by LRAfriyie »

Can someone please tell me if this is actually correct regarding ZIMBRA emails:

1. "Advisors are advised during training to save important Zimbra emails to “drafts” so they are easily accessible, it also means that each time they are accessed Zimbra will see this as an edit and the 30 day period will reset. Any Zimbra emails including draft emails not accessed for 30 days are deleted."

2. We were told saving an email as a draft in Zimbra does NOT delete those emails - and is why we should save emails as a draft, so they NEVER get deleted after 30 days, even if not accessed/opened/read in a 30 day period.

3. Also, I'd thought any emails that had been saved as a draft in Zimbra, when opened to view, would not been seen as an edit UNLESS an actual edit had been made to the email, so the date of the saved email would therefore not be reset? Does opening an email saved as a draft in Zimbra to access for reading, change the date of the email saved?

4. To use a specific company name email account would need to be set up in Zimbra. If someone ALSO uses that same company email address in Outlook (Microsoft Office) for their work emails, while they have the Zimbra Connector for Outlook, so wouldn't this sync ALL the emails they sent & received between both email software/clients? Meaning ALL emails when using this one company email address, when sent directly in Zimbra, would it sync to their Outlook email client because they have the Zimbra Connector?

Any information to clarify all 4 questions above would be greatly appreciated. I hope I've explained clearly what I'm needing to know.

Thank you.
phoenix
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Re: 4 questions about using Zimbra

Post by phoenix »

Any email that is sent from a ZCS account will have a copy put in the Sent folder and that does not have any restrictions on how long the email stays there - I have email in my sent folder that dates back to when I started using Zimbra in 2005. ;) The procedure you're imposing seems rather tortuous and unnecessary to me.

If you're bothered about keeping sent mail for 'audit' then I'd suggest you look at an archiving solution you can use on-premises, there's plenty of 'free' open source products or you could always purchase a archiving solution.
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LRAfriyie
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Re: 4 questions about using Zimbra

Post by LRAfriyie »

Thanks! Not my procedure, is workplace procedure and is why I’m asking these questions.

*Is it all Zimbra accounts that delete emails in Inbox every 30 days?
And does that include emails saved in the Drafts folder?

Any links or documentation about the above anyone can find/provide?
phoenix
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Re: 4 questions about using Zimbra

Post by phoenix »

LRAfriyie wrote:Thanks! Not my procedure, is workplace procedure and is why I’m asking these questions.
I'd suggest you bring to the attention of your 'workplace' that there are better options for 'keeping' email such as the Arching servers.
LRAfriyie wrote:*Is it all Zimbra accounts that delete emails in Inbox every 30 days?
And does that include emails saved in the Drafts folder?
As far as I remember the only folder in all the mailboxes is the Trash folder that gets a thirty day limit on retention at installation.
LRAfriyie wrote:Any links or documentation about the above anyone can find/provide?
Read the product documentation on the Zimbra website and/or search the forums for confirmation,
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Bill

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JDunphy
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Re: 4 questions about using Zimbra

Post by JDunphy »

LRAfriyie wrote:Thanks! Not my procedure, is workplace procedure and is why I’m asking these questions.

*Is it all Zimbra accounts that delete emails in Inbox every 30 days?
And does that include emails saved in the Drafts folder?

Any links or documentation about the above anyone can find/provide?
The default ("email message lifetime") is not to delete emails or I believe that was the default. That can be changed by the admin but we have our's set for 0 meaning we don't delete email. You can also control the trash folder, spam folder, and dumpster folder at the admin level which defaults at 30 days for us. The dumpster folder allowing a user to undelete a message. To really drive this point home - I have folders including my inbox that have never had anything deleted going back many many years. There is also an edit property for each folder including the draft folder that a user can set if they want mail to be deleted and/or override defaults depending on what the admin has done.

See this link for a picture of the edit folder properties and what it looks like: https://www.btactic.com/how-to-configur ... a/?lang=en

As an example, I have used the 'enable message disposal' option for one folder where I get backup reports (8 per day from Zimbra backup) that I have the folder delete for me after 14 days. The other option that also isn't normally checked is to enable message retention... "messages in this folder which fall within the retention range will require explicit confirmation before being deleted". The default seems to be to not delete anything unless the admin specifies this.

Does this help with what you are trying to do? For additional granularity in retention, there is also a module available to meet more formal regulatory requirements by law.

Jim
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