Email archiving - Amazon Simple Email Service
Using email archiving (console)

Email archiving

Email archiving provides a way for you to archive the types of email you specify coming into your ingress endpoint, or emails you send through a configuration set, as well as providing a way to find your archived messages through a rich set of advanced search filters and the ability to export the results.

Email archiving saves and protects your emails by storing data in persistent and secure long-term storage, and gives you a way to quickly search and archive email. It provides full-time, enterprise-level archiving without increasing the storage requirements of your mailbox server.

An archive can contain a combination of both sent and received email:

  • Sent email archiving – When you send (outbound) email through a configuration set with the archiving option enabled, all email sent using that configuration set will be archived to the email archive you designate.

  • Received email archiving – When your ingress endpoint receives (inbound) email, it uses a traffic policy to determine which emails to block or allow. The email you allow in passes to a rule set that applies conditional rules to execute the actions you've defined for specific types of email. One of the rule actions you can define is Archive action—if you select this action, the email will be archived to the email archive you designate.

You must first create an archive before it can be specified in a rule action or configuration set. The procedure in the next section will walk you through creating an archive in the SES console.

Using email archiving in the Amazon SES console

The Email archiving page in the SES console consists of four interactive tables, Search archive, Search history, Export history, and Manage archives, that you can use to search for email in your archives, export the results, and manage your archives. In the following procedures, instructions are provided for each table.

To use the Email archiving page to search, export, and manage your archives

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon SES console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ses/.

  2. In the left navigation panel, choose Email archiving under Mail Manager.

  3. The Email archiving page consists of four tables Search archive, Search history, Export history, and Manage archives. For instructions specific to each of these tables, select its corresponding tab below:

Search archive

Search archive is an interactive table that provides a way for you to search and find your archived messages with a rich filter and date set offering detailed search criteria to find anything from a specific email to many emails matching a broader category. Messages matching your search criteria can be downloaded individually or can be exported in bulk to an S3 bucket.

To search, download, or export archived email

  1. On the Email archiving page, choose the Search archive tab to display the Search archive table.

  2. Click inside the Archive field and choose an archive from the list followed by Search, or refine your search using the following steps.

  3. Select the Date range field to expand date range options for your search:

    • Relative range (default) – Select the radio button that corresponds with the number of days desired, or choose a Custom range by selecting a time unit and a date range up to 30 days.

    • Absolute range – Enter a Start date and an End date (and time if desired) up to 30 days.

    Note

    • Searching within an archive is limited to 30 days at a time. For example, if you want to search for messages from June 1st through July 31st, you would have to break it up into three searches as follows:

      1. 30 days in June.

      2. The first 30 days in July.

      3. The 31st day of July.

    • For Relative range dates, the last day ends at midnight. For example, if you choose Last 7 days, the seventh day would be yesterday, ending at midnight.

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  4. (Optional) Select the Filters field to choose from among the following filters: From, To , CC, Subject line, and Has attachments—the following properties apply:

    • You can create up to 10 filters.

    • A filter can be edited by clicking on it, or removed by selecting the X.

  5. Choose Search and the archived email matching your search criteria will be populated in the Search results table.

    • The Message ID column is hidden by default, but can be displayed by selecting the gear icon to customize how you view the table.

    • Every search you execute is automatically saved with a unique search id and will be listed in the Search history table.

  6. To view the text of a message along with its envelope and header information, select the message’s radio button followed by View details to open the Message details sidebar.

  7. To create a local file of the message, select the message’s radio button followed by Download message.

  8. Your filtered search can be saved to an Amazon S3 bucket by selecting Export to S3.

    1. If you know the URI of the S3 bucket you want to use, enter it in the S3 URI field; otherwise, choose Browse S3 and select an S3 bucket and folder to use on the S3 page.

    2. (Optional) You can encrypt your exported messages either by entering your own AWS KMS key into the KMS key ARN field, or by selecting Create new key. Otherwise, encryption will be set to whatever method is being used on the destination S3 bucket (even if none).

    3. Choose Export and all the messages found in your filtered search will be saved as individual files in the S3 folder you selected.

Note

While there's no limit on how many messages your archive can contain, search results are limited to 1000 rows in the Search results table.

Search history

A history of your searches is listed in this table so that you can restore the result set or access complex filter sets created previously. You can also create new searches based on the original search by editing the filters and dates. Any new searches are automatically saved with a unique search ID and will be listed in this table.

To view and work with your previous searches

  1. On the Email archiving page, choose the Search history tab to display the Search history table which lists a history of all your archived email searches with the most recent on top. This table loads data the first time you visit it—if you switch tabs and come back, use the refresh icon to retrieve the latest data.

  2. Click inside the Archive field and choose an archive from the list—all the searches belonging to that archive will be populated in the table. You can view and do more with individual searches in the steps below.

  3. Select the radio button of a previous search followed by View search results to restore its original search results—the Search archive page will open displaying the filter set and date range used for the original search along with all the messages previously found based on that criteria. You can expand upon the original search in the following ways:

    • Create a new search by modifying the date range and filters followed by Search.

    • Any new searches you perform are automatically saved with a unique search ID and will be listed in the Search history table.

Export history

A history of your exports is listed in this table enabling easy access to the contents of the export folder in the S3 console.

To view your recent exports

  1. On the Email archiving page, choose the Export history tab to display the Export history table which lists all of the archived email searches you exported to an S3 bucket within the last 30 days. This table loads data the first time you visit it—if you switch tabs and come back, use the refresh icon to retrieve the latest data.

  2. If the status of an export is Queued, Preprocessing or Processing, you can cancel it by choosing Cancel.

  3. Select an S3 URI to open the export's bucket folder in the S3 console where you can see the files it contains.

Manage archives

This table lists your archives where you have options to create a new archive, search for a particular archive and view its details, edit an archive, or delete an archive.

To create and manage archives

  1. On the Email archiving page, choose the Manage archives tab to display the Archives table which lists all of your email archives. This table loads data the first time you visit it—if you switch tabs and come back, use the refresh icon to retrieve the latest data.

  2. To search for a particular archive, begin typing in the Archives field.

  3. To view details of an archive, select its name in the Archive name column.

  4. To create an archive, select Create archive.

    1. Enter a unique name in the Archive name field.

    2. (Optional) Select a retention period in the Retention period field to override the default retention period of 180 days.

    3. (Optional) You can encrypt your archive either by entering your own AWS KMS key into the KMS key ARN field, or by selecting Create new key.

    Choose Create archive.

  5. Now that you've created an archive, you can use it in a rule set to archive received (inbound) email, or designate it in a configuration set to archive sent (outbound) email.

  6. To edit an archive, select its radio button followed by Edit.

    1. Edit or change the name in the Archive name field.

    2. Change the retention period in the Retention period field.

    Choose Update archive.

  7. To delete an archive, select its radio button followed by Delete.

    1. Type delete in the Confirm field followed by Delete.

      The archive state will switch to Pending deletion in the Archives table and will be automatically deleted after 30 days.