Keeping your own copy of your email: archives and mailbox backups
Your mailbox is not a safe place to keep the only copy of your business's correspondence. A backup lets you restore mail that was deleted or lost; an archive keeps mail you may need to find years later, such as invoices, contracts and agreements made by email. South African law sets how long many of those records must be kept, and POPIA says personal information should not be kept longer than needed, so a good archive keeps the right mail for the right time. You can keep your own copy with Thunderbird today, and Noiz offers email backup for domains hosted with us.
Backup and archive are different jobs
The two words are often used as if they meant the same thing. They do different work.
| Backup | Archive | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is for | Restoring mail after a loss | Keeping mail for the long term and finding it later |
| How long it is kept | Usually weeks or months, then replaced | Years, by policy |
| What it protects against | Deletion, a broken device, a failed server, ransomware | Losing evidence, missing a record you must produce |
| Who uses it | Whoever restores the system | Whoever needs to find a message |
The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines a backup as a copy made to make recovery possible, and to archive as placing information into long-term storage. A business email set-up needs both.
What the law asks you to keep
Neither the Tax Administration Act nor the Companies Act says "keep all email". An email falls under their periods when it is, or carries, a record the law requires.
- Tax records: five years. The Tax Administration Act requires records that show you met your tax obligations, kept for five years from the date the return was submitted, and longer while an audit, objection or appeal is open.
- Company records: seven years. The Companies Act requires the records it lists, such as accounting records and communications to shareholders, to be kept for seven years or longer where another law says so.
An invoice sent as an attachment, an order confirmed by email, or a notice to shareholders can all be such records. Your accountant or attorney can tell you which of your mail counts.
An email is evidence when it is complete
The Electronic Communications and Transactions Act (ECTA) says a court may not refuse an email as evidence just because it is electronic. Its weight depends on how reliably it was created, stored and kept intact. Where a law requires information to be retained, ECTA accepts a data message that stays accessible, is kept in the form it was sent or received in, and still shows where it came from, where it went, and when.
In practice that means keeping the original message with its headers. A forwarded copy or a printout loses some of that information.
Keep the right mail for the right time
The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) says personal information must not be kept longer than necessary for its purpose, unless a law, a contract, a lawful purpose or consent requires it. When it is no longer needed, it must be deleted in a way that stops it being rebuilt.
So "keep everything forever" is not the answer either. Decide which mail must be kept and for how long, keep that safely, and let the rest go.
Keep your own copy with Thunderbird
If you use Thunderbird with IMAP, your mail lives on the server and Thunderbird shows it. To keep a copy of your own on your computer as well:
- Copy folders into Local Folders. Thunderbird has a built-in Local Folders account on your computer. Mail copied there stays with you even if it is deleted from the server.
- Export to standard files. The free ImportExportTools NG add-on (GPL v3) exports messages and folders as EML files, one per message, or as mbox files, which hold many messages in one file. Both keep the full message with its headers.
- Archive by year. A folder per year, exported once the year closes, keeps the archive tidy and easy to search.
- Back up the copy. A copy on one laptop is still one copy. Store an encrypted backup somewhere else as well.
Our help centre explains how to set up email in Thunderbird and organise mail with folders and filters.
What Noiz backs up, and what you can add
Every Noiz shared hosting plan includes a weekly backup, kept off site, as a safety net for your website. It is not a substitute for your own copy of your mail or other important data, so keep one as described above. For mail, Noiz offers:
- The Email Security add-on for a domain hosted with Noiz includes email backup, which plan backups do not cover, alongside advanced spam and virus filtering and the records that protect your domain from spoofing. See it in the security store.
- Private Email includes daily backups kept off the server, for an organisation whose mail runs on its own server.
Ask us about your mail
Tell us how much mail you hold and how long you need to keep it, and we will point you to the right option. Open a ticket or see the email hosting page.
Sources
Checked 19 October 2026.
Definitions and formats
- NIST glossary: backup
- NIST glossary: archive
- RFC 4155: the application/mbox media type
- ImportExportTools NG for Thunderbird
South African law
- Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011 (section 29)
- SARS: record keeping
- Companies Act 71 of 2008 (section 24)
- Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 (sections 15 to 17)
- Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (section 14)
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Note: while some of this content was produced with the help of AI, the final editing has been done by a real human being.
