Zola 2025-03-05T00:00:00+00:00 https://mailstore-notes.dwlab.me/products/mailstorespe-mailstorehome/atom.xml 2025-03-05T00:00:00+00:00 2025-03-05T00:00:00+00:00 dave https://mailstore-notes.dwlab.me/articles/exporting-and-rearchiving/ <p>This article covers how to export messages from one MailStore environment, and how to then import them into another.</p> <h2 id="better-options"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#better-options" aria-label="Anchor link for: better-options">🔗</a>Better Options</h2> <p>This process is not necessary if you are moving an entire MailStore system to another machine, or want to merge to MailStore environments together, please see the following articles for more information:</p> <h3 id="mailstore-server"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#mailstore-server" aria-label="Anchor link for: mailstore-server">🔗</a>MailStore Server</h3> <ul> <li><a class="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" href="https://help.mailstore.com/en/server/Moving_the_Archive#Moving_the_Archive_to_a_New_Machine">Moving the Archive to a New Machine</a></li> <li><a class="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" href="https://help.mailstore.com/en/server/Moving_the_Archive#Moving_an_Archive_Store_to_a_Different_Installation">Moving an Archive Store to a Different Installation</a></li> </ul> <h3 id="mailstore-spe"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#mailstore-spe" aria-label="Anchor link for: mailstore-spe">🔗</a>MailStore SPE</h3> <ul> <li><a class="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" href="https://help.mailstore.com/en/spe/Moving_Roles">Moving Roles</a></li> <li><a class="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" href="https://help.mailstore.com/en/spe/Moving_Instances">Moving Instances</a></li> <li><a class="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" href="https://help.mailstore.com/en/spe/MailStore_Server_to_MailStore_SPE_Migration">MailStore Server to MailStore SPE Migration</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="exporting-and-re-archiving"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#exporting-and-re-archiving" aria-label="Anchor link for: exporting-and-re-archiving">🔗</a>Exporting and Re-Archiving</h2> <p>In case you do need to do some sort of "export-and-rearchive"</p> <h3 id="source-server"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#source-server" aria-label="Anchor link for: source-server">🔗</a>Source Server</h3> <ol> <li> <p>Log in to MailStore using the <code>admin</code> account, or another account with appropriate permissions.<br /> <br /> <em>MailStore SPE Note:</em> You must log in using the method described in <a class="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" href="https://help.mailstore.com/en/spe/End_User_Access">End User Access</a>, the <a class="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" href="https://help.mailstore.com/en/spe/Accessing_Instances#Using_Service_Provider_Archive_Access">Using Service Provider Archive Access</a> method uses the <code>$archiveadmin</code> account which does not have the necessary permissions.</p> </li> <li> <p>Unblock admin access to the archive.</p> </li> </ol> <ul> <li>Navigate to <code>Admin Tools</code> &gt; <code>Compliance</code> &gt; <code>Compliance General</code>.</li> <li>Click <code>Unblock Access</code>.</li> <li>Confirm with the current user's password.</li> </ul> <ol start="3"> <li>Create an <em>Export E-mail</em> profile.</li> </ol> <ul> <li>Navigate to <code>Export E-mail</code></li> <li>Create a new profile: <ul> <li>Directory (File System).</li> <li>Select <code>EML</code> files.</li> <li>Optionally enable the option to <em>Sign export</em>, but see the note below first.</li> <li>Select an appropriate directory, e.g., <code>C:\EML</code></li> </ul> </li> </ul> <p>Note that if you use the <em>Sign export</em> option, you cannot archive into the same directory again, you must use a different directory for subsequent archiving processes.</p> <h3 id="target-server"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#target-server" aria-label="Anchor link for: target-server">🔗</a>Target Server</h3> <ol> <li> <p>Log in to MailStore using the <code>admin</code> account, or another account with appropriate permissions.<br /> <br /> <em>MailStore SPE</em> Either <a class="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" href="https://help.mailstore.com/en/spe/End_User_Access">End User Access</a> or the <code>$archiveadmin</code> account is fine.</p> </li> <li> <p>Create an <em>Archive E-mail</em> profile.</p> </li> </ol> <ul> <li>Navigate to <em>Archive E-mail</em>. <ul> <li>Create a new profile: <em>E-mail Files</em></li> <li>Select the <em>EML and MSG files</em> option.</li> <li>Select <em>MailStore Export</em>.</li> <li>End the directory containing the EML files, e.g., <code>C:\EML</code>.</li> <li>Ensure that <em>Read MailStore Headers</em> is enabled.</li> <li>If you exported with a signature, enable <em>Verify Signature</em> if desired.</li> <li>Click Next. <ul> <li>Leave the <em>Folders</em> and <em>Filter</em> options as default.</li> <li>Optionally enable <em>Delete</em> if desired.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Click Next. <ul> <li>Leave the <em>Target Archive</em> pointing to the <code>admin</code> archive.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Click <em>Next</em> &gt; <em>Finish</em>.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <p>When exporting, you can set the scope to any archive, folder or subfolder. You can also select any searches saved as a search folder.</p> <p>Optional: To create a search folder:</p> <ul> <li>Navigate to <em>Search E-mail</em> (not the quick search in the top-left).</li> <li>Click <em>New</em> to clear existing search criteria.</li> <li>Enter appropriate search criteria, optionally review the results.</li> <li>Create a saved search folder using the appropriate button.</li> </ul> <h2 id="notes"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#notes" aria-label="Anchor link for: notes">🔗</a>Notes</h2> <ul> <li> <p>The target server will ignore duplicated messages, so you can re-archive the same <code>.EML</code>. messages multiple times without issue.</p> </li> <li> <p>You do not need to be on either MailStore Server to perform either the Export, nor the Archive stage. This means you do not need to figure out how to manually move the <code>.EML</code> between systems.</p> </li> <li> <p><code>.EML</code> files are written by MailStore Client itself, from the context of your own user, on your workstation. If you export to <code>C:\EML</code>, the files are written to, and read from, your drive.</p> </li> <li> <p>You can launch more than one instance of <em>MailStore Client</em>, allowing you to both export and archive at the same time.</p> </li> <li> <p>The process is quite flexible and tolerant of mistakes. You can re-do the export if anything goes wrong, and you can re-do the re-archiving as well. As long as you have the <em>MailStore Export</em> option enabled, the metadata will be consistent, and you won't get duplicates.</p> </li> <li> <p>You can export to/from any combination of MailStore Home, MailStore Server and MailStore SPE, the process is nearly identical.</p> </li> <li> <p>If you are not using the <em>Sign export</em> option, you can re-archive into the same directory, and the option to update the export will skip the messages already in the target directory, avoiding duplicates on disk and allowing you to combine multiple exports into a single directory.</p> </li> <li> <p>Messages are re-archived into the same folder structure as they originated from, including the user/archive name and subfolders. This overrides the <em>Target Archive</em> option.</p> </li> <li> <p>Further information about the <em>Sign export</em> option can be found in the <a class="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" href="https://help.mailstore.com/en/server/Verifying_a_Signed_Export">Verifying a Signed Export</a> article.</p> </li> </ul> <h3 id="mailstore-home"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#mailstore-home" aria-label="Anchor link for: mailstore-home">🔗</a>MailStore Home</h3> <ul> <li> <p>If the <code>.EML</code> export originated from <em>MailStore Home</em> then the <em>Target Archive</em> is used. This applies when archiving into either <em>MailStore Server</em> and <em>MailStore SPE</em></p> </li> <li> <p>If you are archiving into <em>MailStore Home</em> there are no users, therefore you will not be asked to select a target archive and the export will be placed into the <em>My Archive</em> folder structure.</p> </li> </ul> 2023-02-14T00:00:00+00:00 2023-02-14T00:00:00+00:00 dave https://mailstore-notes.dwlab.me/articles/explaining-mailstore-s-folder-structure/

<p>All messages in MailStore are within an individual user's archive, each user has a separate archive, so for example my incoming messages could end up in any/all of these depending on where the messages come from:</p>

2023-02-07T00:00:00+00:00 2023-02-07T00:00:00+00:00 dave https://mailstore-notes.dwlab.me/articles/removing-duplicates/ <h2 id="introduction"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#introduction" aria-label="Anchor link for: introduction">🔗</a>Introduction</h2> <p>MailStore does not have any formal deduplication feature.</p> <p>While archiving MailStore checks each message in the source mailbox to see if it is in the archive in the correct location, skipping messages already in the archive, so in normal operation you should not see duplicated messages.</p> <p>However, if a user or a mailbox is renamed, you might end up with two different sets of folders for the same user, and although you can merge these together, if the two folders contain the same messages you'll end up with duplicates.</p> <p>Because MailStore's archiving process skips messages already in the archive we can export, delete and re-archive the messages, skipping the duplicated messages in most cases.</p> <p>You must first finish merging and organizing messages in MailStore before proceeding.</p> <h2 id="account"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#account" aria-label="Anchor link for: account">🔗</a>Account</h2> <p>You can perform these tasks as the <em>admin</em>, but you need to unblock access to the archive under <em>Administrative Tools</em> -&gt; <em>Compliance</em> -&gt; <em>Compliance General</em>.</p> <p>Alternatively an individual user can perform most of these steps. The user account must have <em>Archive E-mail</em>, <em>Export E-mail</em>, <em>Delete</em> permissions on their account and also <em>Full Access</em> to their archive. The admin will still need to be involved with certain steps, so it is best to perform the following steps as an administrator.</p> <p>Login to MailStore using whatever account you like, all of the steps will be performed in <em>MailStore Client</em> using the same account other than any <em>Administrative Tools</em> steps must be performed by an admin.</p> <h2 id="select-the-messages"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#select-the-messages" aria-label="Anchor link for: select-the-messages">🔗</a>Select the messages</h2> <p>This step is optional, but in some cases you'll be able to narrow down the range of messages using the search filter. If this is not possible, you can perform the following steps on individual folders, entire user archives, or across the entire MailStore archive as you prefer.</p> <p>Start by finding a few examples of duplicate messages, they should already be in the same folder and will have the same <em>Date</em>, but they may be archived on different dates, if so the goal is to determine the date that the duplication occurred. You can select a wider date range if you like.</p> <ol> <li>Go to <em>Search E-mail</em></li> <li>Click the <em>New Query</em> button.</li> <li>Optional: Click the Folder <em>[...]</em> button and select a starting point. You can leave this blank to work across the entire archive.</li> <li>Set the <em>Date</em> field to find messages older than the date the duplication occurred.</li> <li>Set the <em>Archived Date</em> field to find messages <em>not older than</em> than the date the duplication occurred.</li> <li>Click the <em>Create Search Folder</em>, save the search.</li> </ol> <p>You can review the search if you want, hopefully it will contain one instance of each duplicated message but it may contain both copies of the duplicated messages and/or it may contain messages that are not duplicated. This is fine. The goal is to make sure that at least one instance of every duplicated message is found.</p> <h2 id="stop-mailstore-archive-e-mail-profiles-from-running"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#stop-mailstore-archive-e-mail-profiles-from-running" aria-label="Anchor link for: stop-mailstore-archive-e-mail-profiles-from-running">🔗</a>Stop MailStore Archive E-mail profiles from running</h2> <p>It is highly recommend to stop all archiving tasks for the next steps. This can be done in more than one way:</p> <ul> <li>Launch the <em>Configure the MailStore Server Service</em> tool.</li> <li>Stop the service.</li> <li>Start in <em>Safe Mode</em>.</li> </ul> <p>This will stop all background tasks, and only allow <em>admin</em> users to login</p> <p>-OR-</p> <ul> <li>Go to the <em>Archive E-mail</em> panel</li> <li>Select <em>Show Profiles of All Users</em> at the bottom.</li> <li>Select each of the profiles that have a spinning circle, right click, select <em>Manual</em>.</li> </ul> <p>Whatever step you take, be sure to keep track of what you changed so you can revert the change later.</p> <h2 id="export-the-messages"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#export-the-messages" aria-label="Anchor link for: export-the-messages">🔗</a>Export the messages</h2> <ol> <li>Go to <em>Export E-mail</em></li> <li>Create a new <em>E-mail Files</em> export, <em>Directory (File System)</em>, type <em>EML files</em></li> <li>Set the <em>Scope</em> to the messages to be deduplicated, this can be the saved search folder created in the previous step or any other folder you like. Subfolders are included.</li> <li>Set the <em>Target Folder</em> to a local directory that has enough space. I'll use <code>C:\EML</code>. The directory will be created as needed.</li> <li>Enable both <em>Retain folder structure</em> and <em>Update existing export</em>.</li> <li>Complete the profile and <em>Run</em>.</li> </ol> <p>A note about the folder you select:</p> <p>While most operations in MailStore Server use folders relative to the server, in this case we're using a folder relative to the client. So for example, if MailStore Client is installed on your personal workstation and you export to <code>C:\EML</code> the files will be written to your workstation instead of the server.</p> <p>It is possible to use a mapped network drive, UNC path, or external drive, but I would recommend finding a machine with sufficient local internal storage instead as this process is dependent on your disk performance.</p> <h2 id="delete-the-messages"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#delete-the-messages" aria-label="Anchor link for: delete-the-messages">🔗</a>Delete the messages</h2> <p>Once the export finishes, return to <em>MailStore Client</em> and delete the messages.</p> <h3 id="if-you-exported-the-entire-mailstore-archive"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#if-you-exported-the-entire-mailstore-archive" aria-label="Anchor link for: if-you-exported-the-entire-mailstore-archive">🔗</a>If you exported the entire MailStore archive</h3> <ol> <li>Go to <em>Administrative Tools</em> -&gt; <em>Storage</em> -&gt; <em>Storage Locations</em></li> <li>Right click on each Storage Location and <em>Detach</em></li> <li>Create a new Storage Location. MailStore's default name is in the format <em>YYYY-MM</em>, I would recommend staying with this format.</li> <li>Set it to <em>Archive Here</em>.</li> </ol> <h3 id="if-you-used-a-saved-search-folder"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#if-you-used-a-saved-search-folder" aria-label="Anchor link for: if-you-used-a-saved-search-folder">🔗</a>If you used a saved search folder</h3> <ol> <li>Navigate to the saved search.</li> <li>Select the top-most message (single click).</li> <li>Scroll to the bottom, <em>Shift-Click</em> the bottom-most message to highlight the range.</li> <li>Right click on any selected message and select <em>Delete</em>.</li> </ol> <h3 id="if-you-exported-any-other-folder"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#if-you-exported-any-other-folder" aria-label="Anchor link for: if-you-exported-any-other-folder">🔗</a>If you exported any other folder</h3> <ol> <li>Right click on the folder.</li> <li>Select <em>Delete</em>.</li> </ol> <h2 id="re-archive-any-missing-messages"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#re-archive-any-missing-messages" aria-label="Anchor link for: re-archive-any-missing-messages">🔗</a>Re-archive any missing messages</h2> <p>Now we'll re-archive the EML files that we exported.</p> <ol> <li>Go to <em>Archive E-mail</em>.</li> <li>Select <em>E-mail Files</em>.</li> <li>Select <em>EML and MSG files</em>.</li> <li>Select type <em>MailStore Export</em>.</li> <li>Set the folder (<code>C:\EML</code> in my case).</li> <li>Leave other options at their defaults (<em>Include Subfolders</em>, <em>Read MailStore Headers</em> enabled, <em>Verify Signature</em> disabled).</li> <li>Click <em>Next &gt;</em></li> <li>Leave all <em>Advanced Settings</em> at their defaults.</li> <li>Click <em>Next &gt;</em></li> <li>Under <em>Target Archive</em> select the <em>admin</em> user, or your own user. This archive is not used, but the field must be set.</li> <li>Complete the profile and <em>Run</em>.</li> </ol> <p>This will re-archive all of the exported messages, skipping messages already in the archive. If you were able to use a <em>Search E-mail</em> folder to select just a subset of messages then most messages will be skipped but there may be a few messages that were in the selected date ranges that did not get duplicated and we want to make sure we get these messages re-archived.</p> <p>It is possible that you won't have any messages get archived here at all.</p> <p>When the profile finishes click the <em>Details</em> link, all messages should either be archived, or skipped because they were already in the archive.</p> <h2 id="cleanup"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#cleanup" aria-label="Anchor link for: cleanup">🔗</a>Cleanup</h2> <h3 id="re-enable-archiving"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#re-enable-archiving" aria-label="Anchor link for: re-enable-archiving">🔗</a>Re-enable archiving</h3> <p>You can now return MailStore to normal operation by undoing whatever steps you took in the <em>Stop MailStore Archive E-mail profiles from running</em> step.</p> <h3 id="free-up-disk-space"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#free-up-disk-space" aria-label="Anchor link for: free-up-disk-space">🔗</a>Free up disk space</h3> <p>Depending on how you deleted the messages, you might be able to get some disk space back.</p> <h4 id="deleted-all-storage-locations"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#deleted-all-storage-locations" aria-label="Anchor link for: deleted-all-storage-locations">🔗</a>Deleted all Storage Locations</h4> <p>If you deleted all of your <em>Storage Locations</em>, you can now delete the files associated with these old Storage Locations. Be sure to not delete the new Storage Location.</p> <p>If you use MailStore's internal backup feature go to the backup directory and delete all of the <em>Filegroup###</em> directories as MailStore's backup will not do this automatically. The next time MailStore's backup runs it will copy all files that are not in the backup directory.</p> <h4 id="deleted-messages-or-folders"><a class="zola-anchor" href="#deleted-messages-or-folders" aria-label="Anchor link for: deleted-messages-or-folders">🔗</a>Deleted messages or folders</h4> <p>If you deleted messages or folders (but not all Storage Locations) then you might consider running a Compact operation on your Storage Location(s).</p> <p>You won't get a lot of space back as much of the content would have been handled by the single-instance-storage system within the Storage Location but there will be some space recovered.</p>