What Messages are Journaled?
Versions of Messages that are Journaled
Inbound messages: The version of the message received by the user is the one journaled. For example, if a content compliance policy triggers and strips the attachment, the journal copy won’t have the attachment.
Outbound messages: The version of the message sent by the user is journaled. For example, if a content compliance policy triggers and strips the attachment, the journal copy would retain the attachment.
Internal messages: For messages sent within your domain, acts like an inbound message for the recipient and an outbound message for the sender.
Messages Sent to Admin Quarantines
Inbound messages: If an inbound message is sent to admin quarantines, the journal copy isn’t sent until the message is released from the quarantine. If a quarantined message is denied, the user never sees the message and therefore it’s not archived.
Outbound messages: If an outbound message is sent to admin quarantines, a journal copy is sent when the user clicks Send, irrespective of whether the message is quarantined.
Messages with Multiple Recipients
Sometimes when a message is sent to multiple recipients, one group can receive a different version of the messages due to compliance or routing policies.
Inbound messages: A separate journal copy with the relevant message version is sent corresponding to each recipient. To determine whether multiple recipients received the same message, the archiving solution should use deduplication logic.
Outbound messages: A single copy sent by the sender is journaled.
Internal messages: Internal recipients will remain on the message. Although some internal recipients may not actually get the message due to content compliance or other policies, delivery to some or all recipients is captured.
Messages with Unrecognized Recipients
Journals aren’t sent for messages received for unrecognized recipients. To journal for a particular user, the user must be registered.
Retry mechanism for SMTP failure codes
If a message isn’t successfully delivered to the journal address and the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) host returns a temporary error (4xx), Gmail tries to resend the message for eight days. If the SMTP host returns a permanent error (5xx), Gmail does not try to resend the message.