Email archiving glossary

Terms from A to Z

Accounting voucher

A record a booking is based on: an invoice, a credit note, a receipt. When it arrives by email, the email and its attachment belong to it. Kept for ten years in Switzerland and, since 2025, eight in Germany. More

Audit chain

A journal in which every entry carries the digest of the one before it. Change, reorder or remove an entry and every entry after it stops verifying. More

BODY.PEEK

The IMAP command that reads a message without the server marking it as read. More

Business letter

Under German law, any correspondence that prepares, concludes, carries out or reverses a transaction: a quotation, an order, an order confirmation, a complaint. Kept for six years. More

Control report

The dated report MailVault sets from a deep verification, signed by a responsible person. Switzerland's GeBüV requires information media to be checked regularly for integrity and readability (Art. 10(1)). More

Crypto-shredding

Erasing by destroying the key a piece of content is encrypted with. The data stays where it is but can no longer be read, which is how an unalterable archive can erase under the GDPR without being rewritten. More

Data access

The German tax authority's right, during an audit, to inspect stored data and require it in machine-readable form (§ 147(6) AO). More

Deep verification

A check that reads every message back out of storage, reassembles it and compares it with the digest taken when it came in. More

Digest (SHA-256)

A 64-character fingerprint that changes completely when anything in a file changes. MailVault takes one for every message as it comes in. More

EXAMINE

The IMAP command that opens a mailbox read-only. Unlike SELECT, it changes nothing in the mailbox. More

GeBüV

Switzerland's Ordinance on the Keeping and Retention of Accounting Records (SR 221.431). It governs how accounting records and vouchers are kept: integrity, documentation, availability, permitted media and regular checks. More

GoBD

The German Federal Ministry of Finance's principles for the proper keeping and retention of books, records and documents in electronic form, and for data access. More

IMAP

The protocol mail programs use to reach a mailbox on the server. MailVault collects over it, read-only. More

Legal hold

A freeze placed on correspondence for a dispute or an investigation. While it stands, nothing it covers is disposed of or erased. More

OLM

The archive format of Outlook for Mac. More

Procedural documentation

The description of how an organisation captures, keeps and checks its records, called Verfahrensdokumentation in German. The GoBD require it; the GeBüV calls it working instructions. More

PST and OST

Outlook for Windows' data files: PST for personal folders and archives, OST as the offline copy of an Exchange or Microsoft 365 mailbox. More

Rendering

In MailVault, a message rebuilt from an Outlook file. It reproduces the fields faithfully but is not the message a server delivered, so it is marked as such. More

Retention class

In MailVault, the group a message belongs to, which sets its retention period: business correspondence, accounting voucher, contract and so on. Rules assign messages by participants, folder, subject or attachment. More

Retention period

How long a record has to be kept: ten years in Switzerland for accounting records and vouchers from the end of the financial year, six, eight or ten years in Germany from the end of the calendar year, seven in Austria. An expired period permits disposal; it does not require it. More

RFC 3161

The standard for time-stamps issued by a time-stamping authority. Such a time-stamp shows that certain data existed at a given moment, independent of the computer's own clock. More

Seal

In MailVault, an Ed25519 signature over the head of the audit chain and the number of entries. It proves the state of the journal at that moment. More

Second copy

A copy of the archive in another place. MailVault records where it is and names the place in every check; making it is your backup's job. More

Time-stamping authority

A service that issues RFC 3161 time-stamps. MailVault uses SwissSign by default; each archive can name another, and the control report names it. More

WORM

Write once, read many: storage that is written once and only read afterwards. Since the 2022 amendments, SEC Rule 17a-4 also allows a complete audit trail instead. More