University Computer Help Desk

Automatic Email Removal

To help you manage unwanted email, old, deleted emails and spam emails are automatically removed from your account every 30 days.

If you use the central mail server, only messages in your Trash and Junk folders are affected by automatic email removal. If you use Exchange for email, only messages in your Deleted Items and Junk E-mail folders are affected.

Central Mail Server

The following information applies to the central mail server, mail.ilstu.edu. Only email that meets the following criteria will be removed:

• Email is 30 days old (or older)
• Email is in your Trash or Junk folders on the campus mail server, mail.ilstu.edu
• Email messages stored in any mailbox folder other than Trash or Junk will not be affected, regardless of how old they are.

All email messages that meet the criteria outlined above will be automatically removed. The automatic email removal service will continue to run each day and remove email that meets the criteria.

Exchange

The following information applies to Exchange. Only email that meets the following criteria will be removed:

• Email has been stored in Deleted Items or Junk for 30 days
• Email is in your Deleted Items or Junk E-mail folders on Exchange
• Email messages stored in any mailbox folder other than Deleted Items or Junk E-mail will not be affected, regardless of how old they are.

All email messages that meet the criteria outlined above will be automatically removed. Exchange will continue to remove email each day that meets the criteria.

Best Practices for Email

We encourage you to follow these best practices as they benefit all email users.

• Use your Inbox as a point of delivery rather than storage space. Try to keep your Inbox clean by moving important emails to separate mailboxes and deleting unwanted ones. A clean Inbox leads to faster email and better performance; an Inbox clogged with email can result in slow load times and possibly even email corruption.
   
• Create mailbox folders to store and organize your email. If you need to organize and store email efficiently, create separate mailbox folders. For example, create a mailbox called "Work" for work-related email. Organizing email this way is better (and safer) than storing messages in folders designated for deleted email and spam email. 
  
• Don't store important emails in your Trash or Junk folders. If you use Exchange, don't store important emails in your Deleted Items or Junk E-mail folders. These folders are intended only to store unwanted emails. Because email in these folders will be periodically deleted, do not use them to store important emails you want to keep.
   
• Periodically delete old email in your Sent folder(s). Over time, email tends to build up in your Sent folder. Also, different email clients use different names for sent mail (i.e. Sent, Sent-Mail, Sent E-Mail, Out, etc.). You should periodically review the emails in your Sent folders and delete old messages you no longer need.