Beginning June 30, UM System’s information technology department will conduct daily sweeps of all university mailboxes for emails older than five years in the inbox or sent items folders. This email clean-up is outlined in Email Management Policy 12006 and is essential to ensure that sensitive and important data in email accounts remain secure.

Emails older than five years in inbox or sent items folders will be moved into the deleted items folder. These items will then be kept in the deleted items folder for an additional 30 days. After an email is in the deleted items folder for 30 days, it will be permanently deleted.

Begin to prepare for this change now to avoid losing emails you need to keep. For many this means managing your inbox by:

• Using the conversation clean-up tool in Outlook to delete redundant emails. This tool does not work on Outlook for Macs.
• Moving important emails to a subfolder or some other system of record for a required period of time based on the records retention authorizations.
• User-created subfolders in Outlook will not be swept. This includes folders created within inbox and sent items.

If you are unsure if an email qualifies as a record, review the records retention authorizations or contact the records management team at umrecordsmanagement@umsystem.edu.

Contact your IT help desk for technical assistance.