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Restoring Messages Deleted by a User

The trash is called "double-bottomed": it offers a delay during which deleted emails are kept. During this time, users can retrieve messages directly from their BlueMind mailbox (For further information, see, Deleting and recovering messages) or Outlook client (connected via mapi), or the administrator can retrieve them from the server via the command line. This page presents the administrator procedure.

Setting up retention time​

By default, the delay between an expunge command and the unexpunge recovery is 7 days.

To change it :

  • go to System Configuration > Mail > Retention
  • enter the number of days in the "Retention time for e-mails to be purged" field.

For more information, see System configuration > Mail.

Procedure​

When an email is deleted by the user, the BlueMind mail server does not immediately delete the message: the message is marked as deleted and is no longer available, but the file is retained.

deleted folders

The double bottom trash can does not manage the folder hierarchy. When a folder is permanently deleted, the messages are recoverable, but the folder itself is not. It is not possible to retrieve a folder structure. For further information, see, Deleting and recovering messages

IMAP clients can execute the "expunge" command to initiate immediate deletion of messages (via the "empty trash" option, for example), but here too, the mail server is able to add a delay between the moment the user requests expunge and the actual final deletion of the message on the server.

Thus, the bm-cli unexpunge command allows you to recover messages during this period:

bm-cli mail unexpunge

Restoring a user's messages​

The user John Doe (ID: jdoe@bluemind.loc) wants to recover the emails deleted in the past two days. You can use the following command:

#> bm-cli mail unexpunge --days 2 jdoe@bluemind.loc
Folder has 1 deleted message(s)
Recovering messages less than 2 day(s) old
+-----+---------+---------+------------------------------+
| id  | subject | preview | last-modification            |
+-----+---------+---------+------------------------------+
| 406 | Contact |   Boss  | Mon Jan 18 11:36:54 GMT 2021 |
+-----+---------+---------+------------------------------+
Checked 1 deleted item(s), will restore 1 item(s)

Restoring messages from a shared mailbox​

To restore messages from a shared mailbox, you must log in as a user with permission to write on that mailbox. Then add the authn parameter to the command.

Example: you want to restore the messages deleted since yesterday in the Contact mailbox (contact@bluemind.loc) which John Doe has permission to manage:

#> bm-cli mail unexpunge --days 1 --authn jdoe@bluemind.loc contact@bluemind.loc

Folder has 1 deleted message(s)
Recovering messages less than 1 day(s)) old
+-----+---------+---------+------------------------------+
| id  | subject | preview | last-modification            |
+-----+---------+---------+------------------------------+
| 203 |  Coucou |    XMen | Tue Jan 19 15:22:34 GMT 2021 |
+-----+---------+---------+------------------------------+
Checked 1 deleted item(s), will restore 1 item(s)

Available options​

You can use several parameters to make a more specific recovery:

  • days: the number of days to restore
  • dry: tests the command without actually executing the recovery
  • folder: specify a particular directory
  • id: the id of a specific message

For more details on available options and how to use them, use the bm-cli command line help:

# bm-cli mail help unexpunge
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