How should e-mail records be managed?
E-mail represents a communications medium, not a records series. Many e-mail messages are minor administrative records having only brief convenience or reference value, and they should be destroyed within three months of their creation. However, e-mail is sometimes used to transmit records having significant administrative, legal, research, or other value. Valuable records requiring long-term retention should not be maintained in an active or dynamic e-mail system, but should be transferred, in their entirety, to an offline digital storage medium and appropriately scheduled for retention and disposition. Such transfers permit the purging of records from the active e-mail system at regular intervals while also providing a capability for restoring the records to their original condition, without loss of format or informational content. Messages should remain in an e-mail system no longer than one year and preferably no longer than six months. Many agencies include e-mail files in their s
