What
is email expiration?
Email
expiration is the process of having email
messages automatically removed from the email
message store based on some criteria, like
age or size.
How
does email expiration work at Willamette?
At
Willamette, we do not expire any personal
email with the exception of that in the folder
called 'Trash'. The 'Trash' folder is commonly
used by email clients to temporarily store
email that has already been deleted by its
recipient.
Email
clients can be set to automatically purge
the 'Trash' folder, but if they are not, this
folder can get very large over time.
In
order to keep from storing all of this deleted
email indefinitely, we expire all messages
older than 14 days that are in the 'Trash'
folder.
How
is the 14-day age limit calculated?
The
14-day age limit begins at the moment that
a message is received in the INBOX. If you
hold a message for 14 days and then move it
to the 'Trash' folder, it will be removed
that day.
What
if I don't want my email to be deleted?
If
you wish to save an important message, simply
save the message to any other folder. If you're
not in the habit of using email folders, you
can create one or more folders to use for
saving messages you receive that you don't
want to leave in your INBOX.
Why
expire Trash in the first place?
Until
'Trash' expiration was instituted, approximately
25% of the email stored at Willamette was
residing in someone's 'Trash' folder. The
'Trash' folders were also backed up and stored
until a user's 'Trash' folder is purged. Expiring
'Trash' folders is a fairly low-impact way
to keep the amount of deleted email from growing
out of control, and enable the University
to better utilize it's resources for storing
and making available 'active' email.
