Thanks Jesse - I knew someone on the RM list would know!!!

Caroline J. Walters, MA, MLS
University Records Officer/Records Management
Information Security, Policy, and Records Office (ISPRO)
Office of the Vice President/CIO
University of Virginia, 2400 Old Ivy Rd.
Box 400898, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4898
Phone: (434) 243-9162
Fax: (434) 243-9197
Email: [log in to unmask]



-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jesse Wilkins
Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 10:41 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: What happens to an attachment??

Hi Caroline, 

It depends. :) Generally speaking the attachment is stored within the email
"envelope" - however, once it is accessed, it is generally stored
*someplace* on the machine of the user who accessed it. 

More specifically, there are two main cases - either the messages are
downloaded to Outlook or they remain in the Exchange message store and are
accessed there. 

1. If the email is downloaded to Outlook, e.g. using MAPI or POP3: 
a) If the attachment is never opened on that machine it is removed when the
email is removed.
b) If the attachment IS opened, it is stored in a temporary directory.
Removing the email will remove that pointer, but depending on the OS it is
trivially easy to find the attachment in the temporary directory. 

2. If the email is NOT downloaded to Outlook, but merely read from the
Exchange store, e.g. using IMAP:
a) If the attachment IS opened by one or more users, it is stored in a
temporary directory on each user's machine. Removing the email will remove
that pointer, but depending on the OS it is trivially easy to find the
attachment in the temporary directory.
b) Irrespective of that, if the email is deleted, the attachment is deleted,
however with a caveat. Exchange uses single-instance storage, meaning that
when a message is sent to more than one person only one copy is stored in
the message store and links are created for each recipient. So if one user
deleted the message, that act would delete the pointer to the email (and its
attachment if it hadn't been opened and read) but any other users would
retain access to it until the last user with access to the message deletes
it (and the deleted inboxes are cleaned out). In Exchange 2007,
single-instance storage is only applied to attachments. In other words,
everyone in fact receives a copy of the message, but the attachment is only
stored once and pointers created to *it*. But the general idea is the same. 

I hope this is helpful - please let me know if I can provide any additional
information. 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of myself and no other company,
organization, association, entity, or board of directors,

jesse
[log in to unmask] 
(303) 574-0749 direct
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jessewilkins 

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