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Monash Email Archiving Tool

About the Archive Tool

This tool allows you to archive all or part of the email that you have stored on Monash email servers in a format that can be read by Thunderbird, Mozilla Mail and Netscape Messenger. Outlook/Outlook Express are not able to access the archived data.

The tool works for the Staff and Student email servers in Australia (mail.monash.edu.au) and the Staff and Student email servers in South Africa (mail1.zaf.monash.edu & mail2.zaf.monash.e du).

The result of your request will be a zip file, preserving the folder structure on your server, that you can download to your own PC.

Important Note:

Please ensure you download the archive within two days. After this, It will be automatically removed.

You should make sure your archive works correctly, and make backup copies of it as appropriate, before removing the mail from your account.

Once emails have been moved or deleted from your account, they are no longer automatically backed up. If you create an archive of your mail and then delete the mail from your account, your archive becomes the sole copy of the deleted mail. It is your responsibility to ensure that your archive file is appropriately backed up.

Create an archive

Using the tool is an easy 3-step process:

1. Request an archive of your mail

  • Request - select folders to archive, limited by date range

You will need to authenticate (using AuthCate) and specify a date range for your request. Once you have submitted your request, it will go into a queue to be processed.

Note: Archiving your emails will not remove them off the server. The removal of archived emails should be done manually once you are satisfied that the archive of was successful.

Note: Folder names that are longer than 50 characters will be truncated.

2. Wait for your request to be processed

Requests normally take between 30-60 minutes to be processed. Large archive requests may take longer than this.

Once the request has completed, you will be sent email with details of how to download your archive. This email will tell you how many messages have been archived, how many folders are in the archive, and the overall size of the archive. If you made a mistake and requested the wrong date range, just issue your request again.

3. Download a previously-requested archive of your mail

Once you authenticate again and click the Download archive button, the archive will be downloaded to your computer.

Please make sure that you have enough space before downloading! If you don't download your archive within 24 hours it will automatically be deleted and you will need to issue another request.

Accessing the archive

After it is downloaded, the archive can be accessed by doing the following:

Netscape Communicator under Windows

  1. Close all Netscape windows.
  2. Open the archive using Winzip
  3. Extract the archive to the folder:

    C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\your name\Mail\

    Note: If you can't find this folder, your client may have been installed to a non-standard location.
    Please contact your local IT support for assistance.

    your name will either be your name (i.e. Jane Citizen) or the words "Default User", depending on your setup

  4. Restart Netscape, and open Messenger.
  5. The archive should now be available under Local Mail.

Mozilla Mail under Windows

  1. Close all Mail windows.
  2. Open the archive using Winzip
  3. Extract the archive to the folder:

    Windows 98/ME:
    C:\Windows\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\profile name\Mail\

    Windows 2000/XP:
    C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\profile name\xxxxxxxx\Mail\Local Folders\

    Note:If you can't find this folder, your client may have been installed to a non-standard location.
    Please contact your local IT support for assistance.

    "xxxxxxxx" will be an 8-character mix of letters and numbers followed by ".slt"
    username is the username you use when logging into Windows 2000/XP
    profile name will either be your Mozilla Mail profile name (i.e. Jane Citizen) or the words "Default user"

  4. Restart Mozilla, and open Mail.
  5. The archive should now be available under Local Mail.

Mozilla Thunderbird under Windows

  1. Close all Thunderbird windows.
  2. Open the archive using Winzip
  3. Extract the archive to the folder:

    Windows 98/ME:
    C:\Windows\Application Data\Mozilla\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\Mail\Local Folders\

    Windows 2000/XP:
    C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\Mail\Local Folders\

    Note: If you can't find this folder, your client may have been installed to a non-standard location.
    Please contact your local IT support for assistance.

    "xxxxxxxx" will be an 8-character mix of letters and numbers followed by the word ".default"
    username is the username you use when logging into Windows 2000/XP

  4. Restart Thunderbird, and open the Mail component
  5. The archive should now be available under Local Mail.

Netscape Communictor under Mac OS8.X or 9.X

  1. Quit Netscape
  2. Open the archive using Stuffit Expander
  3. Extract the archive to the folder:

    System Folder:Preferences:Netscape Users:your name:Mail

    (the : symbol represents a transition from a folder to a subfolder - thus System Folder:Preferences means the Preferences folder within the System Folder).

    your name will either be your name (i.e. Jane Citizen) or the words "Default User", depending on your setup

  4. Restart Netscape
  5. The archive should now be available under Local Mail.

Mozilla Mail under Mac OS X

  1. Quit Mozilla
  2. Open the archive using Stuffit Expander
  3. Extract the archive to the folder:

    /Users/your short name/Library/Mozilla/Profiles/your name/xxxxxxxx/Mail/Local Folders/

    4. "xxxxxxxx" will be an 8-character mix of letters and numbers followed by ".slt"
    your short name is the username you use when you log into OS X.
    your name will either be your name (i.e. Jane Citizen) or the words "Default user:", depending on your setup

  4. Restart Mozilla
  5. The archive should now be available under Local Mail.

Mozilla Thunderbird under Mac OS X

  1. Quit Thunderbird.
  2. Open the archive using Stuffit Expander
  3. Extract the archive to the folder:

    /Users/your short name/Library/Application Support/Thunderbird/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/

    "xxxxxxxx" represents an 8-character mix of letters and numbers followed by the word ".default"
    your short name is the username you use when you log into OS X.

  4. Restart Thunderbird, and open the Mail component
  5. The archive should now be available under Local Mail.

Working with multiple archives

When your mail archive is created, the folders you request to be archived are wrapped inside an extra folder. This extra folder is called "archive-date", where date is the date the archive was made. When you put your extracted archive into your Local Folders (following the steps above), the archived folders will appear inside this "archive-date" folder.

If you request a new archive at a later date, the new archive will be wrapped in a folder with a different date. This way, you can keep several archives made on different dates in your Local Folders without needing to worry about the "new" archive destroying the old archived mail.

For example, you may have a folder in your email called "completed tasks", which you want to archive off and delete from the server every 3 months. Because each archive extracts into its own wrapper folder within Local Mail, you can do this, and each new archive will not break the previous ones.

Be aware, however, that if you request and download multiple archives on the same date, they will be overwritten when you extract to your Local Folders.

The ITS Messaging and Scheduling team hope you find this tool useful.

Please contact the ITS Service Desk if you have any questions or wish to report a problem with the tool.