---
title: "What is Email Archiving?"
url: https://lookeen.com/blog/what-is-email-archiving-2
lang: en
description: "Chaos in your mailbox? With email archiving, you create space in your mailbox! Here's how you can archive Outlook emails."
author: "Eric Ebert"
published: 2012-10-01T06:18:28+00:00
modified: 2026-11-11T06:58:27+00:00
---

# What is Email Archiving?

What is Email Archiving?

Wikipedia defines email archiving as follows: “*Email archiving is an independent term for the long-term, immutable, and secure storage of electronic messages*.”

That is defined quite quickly, but why would you need something like this? What benefits does email archiving bring you? For an individual user with strong organizational skills, the advantages may not be that significant. Nevertheless, if you lack either the ability or the time to organize your emails yourself, then archiving can be a great solution.

Imagine you are looking for important contract information from your mobile network provider from two years ago, but have no idea where the corresponding email is located. If you archive your emails regularly (e.g., monthly, annually), you should be able to retrieve that information with just a few clicks using your archives.

[Learn how to find archived emails faster here!](https://lookeen.com/solutions/outlook-search/search-pst-files)

## Archive Search

Email archiving can play a really significant role, especially for businesses. Companies have been using email archiving for years because it saves time and money. Every employee who needs to write an email to a customer about a recurring issue only has to search for a few keywords in the corresponding email archives and can simply use an already written email as a template – this saves the employee time and the company money!

## Compliance

Another important reason for companies to invest in email archiving is the need to comply with legal regulations that require many industries to retain documents for a specific period (sometimes more than five years!). The overwhelming growth of electronic communication has not changed these laws, nor are electronic documents exempt from them. These documents must also be accessible to authorities upon request at any time. This is where the strength of email archiving comes into play again: through email archiving systems, companies have the opportunity to establish a company-wide system to meet legal requirements.

But even without government mandates, email archiving is an important topic for businesses. Email archives can even serve as a backup if your entire system ever crashes. Is there actually anything against email archiving?