Lotus Notes 7 Archiving FAQ

Q. What is server based archiving?

A. If your email account is being archived on our server you will not have to worry about the rest of this archiving FAQ. Everything is being taken care of for you at a cost of $5.00 a month.



Q. How long does archiving take?

A. Following the steps on our Archiving Guide page, you can have your archive settings configured and ready to archive in a matter of minutes. The initial archive may take several minutes if you have years and years worth of old emails, but any after that should only take a minute or two.



Q. What is archiving?

A. Archiving frees up space and improves performance of any database by storing documents in another database when they are old or not in use anymore. After specifying which documents you want stored, you can have Notes archive automatically on a schedule, or you can archive manually. This saves server storage space and cuts down on the time it takes to open your mail and folders.



Q. What actually happens when you archive?

A. Archiving takes older mail messages off of the Notes servers and places a database copy on your local computer. These messages are easily accessible by your Notes client. You can archive manually or set a schedule to archive daily or weekly.



*Note:Once the messages are archived to your local machine, it is your responsibility to back this data up to another external source such as CD, DVD, or other backup drives as you would back up any of your other important files.



Q. Where is the archive stored?

A. By default, your archive is stored on your local machine in your Notes data folder under the path:

C:\Program Files\Lotus\Notes\Data\Archive\a_yourname.nsf

An alternate location might be:

C:\DocumentsandSettings\Username\LocalSettings\ApplicationData\Lotus\Notes\Data\Archive\a_yourname.nsf



Q. How do I access the archive?

A. There are a couple ways to go about opening your archive. Important Note: To view the messages in an archive, this archive must first be enabled. Go to Actions, Archive, Settings and then click on the Criteria tab. Click the Enable button.

Method 1: You can open your archive through your Notes full client by clicking in the left window pane on Tools, selecting Archive, and then clicking the archive's name. The archive will open on a separate tab in your workspace. Note that you can have both your server Inbox and your local archive open at the same time.

Method 2: Go to File, Database, Open. (In Lotus Notes 8 go to File, Open, Lotus Notes Application.) Make sure the server is set to Local and scroll down to the archive folder. Browse to your archive, highlight it, and click Open.



Please note that local archives are likely encrypted, and since they are you will need the ID file used to create the archive in order to open it. Be sure to always keep a copy of that ID file from your data directory when moving to a new computer.



Q. How do I check my mail database size?

A. With your mailbox open, go to File, Database, Properties. (In Lotus Notes 8, go to File, Application, Properties.) Click on the i tab and note the number after "Disk Space". We recommend that you keep the total mail file size under 200MB.



Q. How can I decrease my mail file size without archiving?

A. Large attachments can add up quickly over time. Go through your Inbox, Sent messages, and other folders and delete messages with attachments you do not need. A better solution might be to save the attachments to your local computer and then delete the messages. Tip: You can sort messages by size by clicking on the size field in your mail. If you find that there are too many messages that you want to keep from over the years, the best solution is to archive the messages.



Q. What if I am a POP3/IMAP user?

A. Install the Lotus Notes full client! Although you can use POP3/IMAP regularly, there is no support for this service in the case of a clustered server fail-over.



Q. What about the folders I have created?

A. Your folder structure will be copied to your new archive so you will still have messages sorted the way you originally had them.



Q. How do I schedule archiving?

A. You can archive manually or you can set up Notes to do it for you. Go to Actions, Archive, Settings and click on the Advanced tab. Check the box that says Scheduled archiving will occur locally and then click the Schedule button. Here you can tell Notes to archive your mail daily or weekly at a given time. For the schedule to run properly, make sure you have your archive criteria settings enabled. Don't forget to periodically backup your archive in your Notes data folder in the event that your computer crashes.



If you have other questions, please contact your technical support staff or the IS Computer Help Center at 472-3970.