Backups in Zimbra 10

Zimbra are making significant changes to the way backups in Zimbra 10 onwards are working. The following details relate to how backups and restores work on the Protected Service platform going forwards.

What's Changing

Restoring Deleted Mailboxes

  • Restoring a deleted mailbox will now be instant and can be done from the control panel up to 14 days from the date of deletion.
  • It will no longer be possible to restore 'live' mailboxes that have not been deleted.

Restoring Lost Items

  • Restoring items which have been deleted from in-use mailboxes can only be restored using the Zimbra Dumpster (see below) - it will no longer be possible to restore a copy of the mailbox.
  • Dumpster retention is changing to a minimum of 15 days for all Classes of Service (previously the minimum was 7 days).
  • All Zimbra item types can be restored from the Dumpster (emails, contacts, calendar items etc).
  • The Zimbra Dumpster feature is expected to be enhanced in future Zimbra releases to include the ability to restore items to their previous location and to be able to restore entire folders.

Restore Examples

Based on the changes, the following examples illustrate common restore scenarios.

  1. To restore lost items from a deleted mailbox the process would be to restore the mailbox from the control panel, then login to the mailbox using the Dumpster and restore the items.
  2. To restore items a mailbox user has inadvertently deleted - use the Dumpster (see below).
  3. To restore items deleted more than 15 days ago will not be possible.
  4. To restore mailboxes deleted more than 14 days ago will not be possible.

Zimbra Dumpster

Using Zimbra Dumpster is straight forward.

From the Classic UI

  1. Right click on the Trash folder in any tab - email, contacts, calendar etc, and select Recover Deleted Items
Select Recover Deleted Items
  1. Locate and select the item or items you wish to restore (the search is helpful). Multiple items can be selected using shift+click.
  2. Click the Recover To button
Select items for restore
  1. Select which folder to restore the items to and click the OK button. The items will be restored immediately.
Select the destination