3️⃣Importing Old Email

Importing the old mail into the archive via the Mailbox Reader service.

What is Mailbox Reader?

Mailbox reader allows you to import old mail directly from your mail server directly into the archive. The Mailbox Reader is configured in two parts. Firstly, by creating a connection to a mail server system and then by adding user mailboxes to read from that connection.

Configuring a Mailbox Reader Connection

Go to Mailbox Reader > Connection Settings

The Connection Settings section allows Administrators to configure the settings to setup a Mailbox Reader Connection. You need to create a connection before importing user accounts.

The protocol you wish to use for accessing and reading from the mailboxes will depend on the mail server. Recommendations for protocol:

• For Exchange 2007 onwards, use EWS (Exchange Web Services). This is a powerful facility and is becoming more efficient and effective with later Exchange releases.

• For most other mail sources, use IMAP (Exchange 2003 / Gmail / Hotmail / etc.)

• Use POP3 as a last resort.

• MSGraph

Then you will need to discover the server from which to access the mailboxes. For Exchange, the CAS server is usually preferred – as this offers the IMAP (if enabled) and EWS web services. For EWS you MUST enter the correct server host name – it must match the services’ certificate and standard URL. Please note: If this is not correct, EWS will not authorise the connection and errors.

For IMAP/POP3, you will generally use the service names that are well documented by the various mail vendors

EWS is the recommended method for mail extraction from an on-premises Exchange system.

MSGraph is the recommended method for mail extraction from Microsoft Exchange Online(Office365).

Some Mailbox Reader settings are only visible when a particular protocol is selected and these are noted in the description for that setting.

Configuring a Mailbox Reader Connection with MSGraph Protocol

Prerequisite: OAuth Connection details. To create an OAuth Connection, please see the documentation here.

Within your OAuth connection, the following fields should be set.

• Protocol field should be MSGraph

• Server field should be outlook.office365.com

• OAuth connection field should default to Microsoft Office 365

• Tenant ID is global identifier for office 365 account

To create a Mailbox reader with MSGraph Protocol, please follow the below guide.

1. Navigate to Mailbox Reader > Connection Settings.

2. Click the Create Connection button.

3. Enter / Select the required values in the fields. Refer to the table below for field names and descriptions.

4. Click the Save Connection button.

   The mailbox reader connection settings will be configured successfully.

Note: Hover your mouse on the field names for additional information and / or example values.

Please see the table of below values and explanation of each field.

Field	Description
Protocol	Protocol that will be used for the new connection.
Server	Server’s URL hostname that would correspond to the Exchange server certificate, as you would use when using OWA. In this example, we would access our own mailboxes in OWA with this URL https://mail.solar-archive.com/owa. So use the hostname from that URL.
Domain	Domain of the mailbox reader connection. Depending on network requirements, this may or may not be needed.
Port	Port number that will be used for the new connection. For EWS this will always be the standard https port, which is 443.
Enable this Connection	Specifies whether this connection is enabled or not.
Separate log file per user account	Specifies whether each user account will have a separate log file.
Skip Completed Mailboxes	Specifies whether or not completed mailboxes should be skipped.
Idle Alert Period	Time, in hours, after which an alert will be raised if no emails are downloaded.
Connection Type	Mailbox reader connection type. For EWS this will always be https:
Include Folders	Folders from which messages should be downloaded. Generally, this will be from ALL folders – so the * wildcard can be used. Otherwise a comma separated set of folder names can be provided. For Sub Folders, you will need to enter the full path – each part separated by a forward slash. For example: inbox/archive mail/*,sent mail. Note: The * will mean that non-email folders will be accessed.
Exclude Folders	Refers to the Folders from which messages should not be downloaded.
Concurrent Account Download Limit	Number of mailboxes that will be queried in parallel.
Run Mode	This will say “Polling” if there is no END DATE for mail collection. Without an end date, the system will need to repeatedly scan mailboxes which is a technique used to archive mail from systems that do not have a Journaling feature (like Hotmail / Gmail / Live mail / other IMAP or POP3 sources). If an end-date is specified, then the Run Mode will say “Date Limited”. The summary information that is displayed during mailbox collection will be different between Polling mode vs Date Limited mode.
Selection Range	Range based on which messages should be downloaded.
Start Date & Time	Time stamp from which messages should be downloaded.
End Date & Time	Time stamp till which messages should be downloaded.
Queue Messages For Import Node	Specifies whether the downloaded messages should be queued under the import node.
Mailbox Reader De-duplication	De-duplication method for downloaded messages using Mailbox Reader and against which set of messages.