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Archive

Valid for versions 82 through the latest version

Version:

82

Last modified: May 28, 2024

Looking for this interface?
Note:

Your hosting provider can enable or disable this interface in WHM's Feature Manager interface (WHM >> Home >> Packages >> Feature Manager).

Overview

Warning:

The Archive interface does not appear in your cPanel interface unless your system administrator enables the following settings:

  • The Enable Email Archiving support setting in the Mail section of WHM’s Tweak Settings interface (WHM » Home » Server Configuration » Tweak Settings).
  • The Email Archiving feature in WHM’s Feature Manager interface (WHM » Home » Packages » Feature Manager) for your account’s feature list.

This interface allows you to save incoming, outgoing, and mailing list messages for a specified amount of time. The system stores the messages in the mail directory in the user’s home directory. Each day, the system generates a new directory with the archivetype.YYYY-MM-DD format that contains all of the specified archive type’s messages.

  • When the system receives a message, it immediately archives the message.
    • This action occurs before the system applies any filters.
    • The system archives both spam and non-spam emails.
  • The system does not archive messages that you receive before you enable the Archive feature.

You can view the messages in the cPanel interface or in a mail client.

Note:
  • This feature uses the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) time zone to name directories, select messages to store in each directory, and timestamp messages. You cannot change this setting.
  • The amount of disk space that the system uses to archive messages increases in accordance with the length of time that you store mail. Make certain that significant space exists on your disk drive before you enable the Archive feature for a domain on your cPanel account.

Default Archive Configuration

To enable a default archiving configuration for all of your domains, perform the following steps:

  1. Select the desired archive type.
  2. Select the length of time for the system to retain messages in the archive. The interface will display a message that the Archive feature is enabled.
  3. Click Apply to All My Domains to apply the default configuration to all of your domains.

Manage Archiving

The Manage Archiving table lists the archiving settings for each of your domains.

Modify a domain’s email archive

To make changes to an existing email archive configuration, perform the following steps:

  1. In the table, locate the domain for which you wish to enable the email archive.
  2. Select the desired archive type.
  3. Select the length of time for the system to retain messages in the archive. The interface will display a message that the Archive feature is enabled.

IMAP Access

You can view messages in multiple ways through an IMAP connection.

Automatic Configuration Scripts

To use a cPanel-provided automatic configuration script, perform the following steps:

  1. Click the IMAP Access option next to the domain for which you wish to view messages. The Archive Mail Client Configuration interface will display.
  2. Select either IMAP over SSL/TLS (recommended) or IMAP for your chosen mail client.
  3. Follow the instructions to complete the setup.
  4. Use the provided settings to manually set up a read-only configuration via IMAP.

Manual Settings

To manually configure your mail client, perform the following steps:

  1. Click the IMAP Access option next to the domain whose messages you wish to view.
  2. In the selected mail client, provide the following information, where example.com represents your domain name:
    • Mail Server Username: [email protected]
      • Your password is the same as your cPanel account password.
    • Incoming Mail Server: (SSL) mail.example.com
      • IMAP port: 993
    • Incoming Mail Server: (non-SSL) mail.example.com
      • IMAP port: 143
  3. After you provide the information to your mail client, the daily directories appear in the folder list.

Download Archives

To download the archives to your local computer, perform the following steps:

  1. Click the Download Archives option next to the domain for which you wish to view messages.
  2. Select from the following options:
    • All archives
    • Incoming
    • Mailing Lists
    • Outgoing
  3. The system downloads a .zip file that contains the archived messages to your local computer.

Access Webmail

Click the Access Webmail link to view archived messages through Webmail.

Note:

You may need to perform additional steps in some webmail clients. For more information, read our How to Set Up Webmail Folders documentation.

Manage Disk Usage

You can delete messages from the archives to free up disk space.

To delete messages from the archives, perform the following steps:

  1. Click Access Webmail for the domain that you wish to manage. The Webmail interface will appear.
  2. In the top-right corner of the interface, click your archive’s email address. The User Preferences menu will appear.
  3. Click Manage Disk Usage. The Manage Disk Usage interface will appear.
  4. Click Manage for the mailbox that you wish to manage.
  5. In the Messages to delete menu, select the message filter that you wish to use:
    • 1 year or more.
    • 30MB in size or more.
    • Previously viewed.
    • All messages.
    • Custom query. — This option allows you to use Dovecot query language to make your own filter.
  6. Click Delete Permanently. A success message will appear.

Additional Documentation