Message retention and deletion, Continuation events and archiving – Google Message Archiving Administration Guide User Manual

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Message Archiving Administration Guide

Message Retention and Deletion

You specify the maximum retention period for your messages when you purchase
Message Discovery. Message Archiving can retain messages for periods of up to
10 years. You set a separate retention period up to that maximum for each user
org. The flexibility to set retention periods on a per-org basis lets you tailor
message retention to the needs of various user groups.

You can retain messages longer than your retention period if you turn off Auto-
purge (see below).

The Message Archiving Settings page for an organization indicates the retention
period. For information about setting the retention period for an organization, see
“Step 5. Turn On Archiving” on page 45.

You can use the Auto-purge option to have Message Archiving automatically
delete messages at the end of the month in which their retention periods expire
(Auto-purge ON), or you can choose to manually purge messages from the
archive (Auto-purge OFF). You can also place a hold on saved search results,
which temporarily halts automatic message deletion. This option may be useful
during an investigation or notice of litigation.

You can use the Retention tab to turn the Auto-purge function on and off, and to
manually purge messages from the archive. For more information, see the
Message Archiving User’s Guide.

Note:

You cannot delete messages from your corporate archive before their

retention periods expire or if they are on hold beyond their retention periods.

Continuation Events and Archiving

If a continuation event occurs (failover to the secondary data center), Message
Archiving continues to process and archive messages as usual. However, during
a full continuation event, some features are not available, as the following table
describes. For more information about continuation events, refer to the Message
Security Administration Guide.

Feature

Available during mailflow
continuation event?

Available during full
continuation event?

Message
capture and
storage

Yes. Message Archiving
continues to archive email.

Message
indexing

Yes. Message Archiving
updates the message
indexes as usual.

Yes. Message Archiving
updates the message indexes
as usual.