Frequently Asked Questions about the USC Archived Email Folder

• What is the USC Archived folder?
• Who can get a USC Archived folder?
• How do I get an USC Archived folder?
• What information should a dean or vice president provide to ITS when requesting an archival folder for a faculty or staff member?
• How do I archive my email?
• How long can I keep my email in the USC Archived folder?
• What is the quota of my USC Archived folder?
• Can I create the USC Archived folder myself?
• What can I do if I forget to move email into my USC Archived folder and it gets deleted?

The USC Archived folder is an email folder that is exempt from USC's 365-day deletion policy.

Faculty and staff who have a business need to archive email on USC servers and have approval from their dean or vice president are eligible for this folder.

Staff and faculty who have a business need to archive email on USC servers should send their dean or vice president a brief statement explaining their need for the folder. If the dean or vice president approves the request, he or she will then send an email to archive@usc.edu to request that ITS set up a USC Archived folder for the approved party. ITS may take up to 5 business days to process the request. ITS will notify the approved account holder to let him or her know that the folder has been created.

Requests for a USC Archived account should be sent to archive@usc.edu from the dean's or vice president's USC email address. The email needs to include the faculty or staff member's USC username (the part of the email address before "@usc.edu") and USC ID number. Notification that the archive folder is ready will be sent to the approved account holder's USC email address.

Once your archival folder has been approved, you can easily move email into the folder by using the Move Messages to Folder menu in USC Web Mail. If you are using an external email client, please see the documentation for your client for directions.

The folder will be exempt from USC's email 365-day deletion policy. You can keep email in this folder for as long as you like, and it will not be deleted.

The archival folder counts as part of the standard 1-gigabyte quota for your USC email account; the email that you archive will affect the capacity of your email Inbox.

You can create your own archival folder, but it will not be exempt from USC email retention policy; it will be deleted after one year. Only archival folders created by ITS email system administrators will be exempt for the university's email retention policy.

Any mail that has been deleted due to the Email Retention Policy cannot be restored. Make sure all email that you wish to archive is moved to your USC Archived folder before the 365-day storage term limit.