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Email Stored on the Post Office Server

All MIT mailboxes stored on the MIT mail servers are backed up regularly in case of catastrophic server failure.

For IMAP email, IS&T does not provide a service for restoring email that you delete from the server intentionally or by accident. Mail lost due to server/system failure will be restored. Mail lost through user error/deletion will not.

With Exchange email, you can restore recently deleted mail by retrieving it from the "dumpster". After two weeks the deleted items are purged from the dumpster and are gone forever. Only the Outlook Web Access Premium and Outlook 2007 clients are capable of retrieving deleted items. For more information, see: Q: How do I recover deleted email in my Exchange email account?.

You should regularly backup any email messages you do not want to lose. To backup messages stored on the mail servers, copy them to your local machine (or Athena directory) and make sure they are included in the backup process you've established for that machine. If you use Outlook, make sure you always close outlook at the end of the day. TSM will not successfully back up your local email files if Outlook is open. For information on backing up your email and settings for specific clients, see:

• Using MIT Webmail: Save Messages to Computer
• Apple Mail: Copy IMAP Mail to Your Local Computer for Backup Purposes
• Outlook on-server mail backup and recovery
• Outlook 2003 for Windows: Backing Up IMAP Mailboxes
• Outlook Express 6 for Windows: Backing Up and Restoring Data

Email Stored on Your Local Machine

You should make sure that important email messages residing on your local machine are included in your backup process. Treat them as you would any files that you back up. IS&T provides a backup service to which you can subscribe and use. If you work on Athena via public clusters, go to Backing up and Restoring files for instructions on how to backup the email in your Athena home directory.