Your Files.com site can be configured into a mode under which files and folders will never be able to be modified or deleted. This mode is typically used by regulated customers who are seeking to use a Files.com site as a storage archive for data retention compliance or regulatory purposes.

This setting can never be turned off once it has been enabled.

We recommend using a child site or a secondary Files.com site, rather than your primary Files.com site, for Archive Only mode.

Effects of Archive Only Mode

Archive Only mode affects the stored files and folders of your Files.com site and the actions that you can take on those files and folders.

Once Archive Only mode is enabled, files and folders are prohibited from being updated or deleted.

File and Folder Actions

In terms of typical CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations for files and folders, the Archive Only mode will allow only Create and Read operations. Because create and read operations are allowed, files and folders can be created, uploaded, copied, duplicated, listed, downloaded, and previewed. However, the prohibition on operations that update or delete means that files and folders cannot be updated, edited, modified, renamed, moved, overwritten or deleted.

While files and folders can be copied, a copy operation will only succeed if nothing is overwritten at the destination. You cannot perform a copy operation that will overwrite a file or folder.

Users Affected

Archive Only mode affects all user types of your archive site, including Site Administrators.

Connection Types Affected

Restrictions apply to all connection methods, including web, FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, AS2, API, Desktop App, Mobile App, and Command Line Interface App (CLI). This includes connections made using login sessions, SFTP/SSH Keys, or API Keys.

Administrator Actions

Site administrators can still perform regular management and configuration of the site. Configuration of items such as Users, Groups, Permissions, Inboxes, Share Links, Authentication and other features remains mostly unchanged with the exception that any associated folders or files which are created will be prohibited from being updated or deleted.

For example, an Administrator will be able to create, update, and delete user accounts but will not be able to update or delete any files and folders associated with those user accoUunts.

Remote Server Mount

Mounted remote servers, accessed via Files.com, will be affected by Archive Only Mode. Files and folders on the mounted remote server will be prohibited from being updated, overwritten, renamed, or deleted through Files.com.

Accessing the remote server directly, circumventing Files.com, will not enforce any of the Archive Only Mode features of Files.com. Files and folders on the remote server can be updated and deleted by users of that remote system.

Remote Server Sync

Remote Server Syncs will be affected by Archive Only Mode. Files and folders on both the remote server and Files.com will be prohibited from being updated, overwritten, renamed, or deleted by a sync. For example, if the destination of a sync is empty then the first sync will succeed but subsequent syncs will fail as destination files cannot be overwritten.

The After copying setting of Delete source files from this site will be prohibited from deleting source files and should not be used when Archive Only Mode is enabled.

Actions performed on the remote server directly, circumventing Files.com, will not enforce any of the Archive Only Mode features of Files.com. Files and folders on the remote server can be updated and deleted by that remote system.

Folder Settings

Most Folder Settings actions will continue to operate normally as uploaded files and folders are processed prior to being stored on Files.com, but some are limited or completely prohibited.

Some actions will continue to function as normal on Archive Only site. The Rename uploaded files folder setting will automatically rename newly-created files. GPG encryption and decryptions will work on an Archive Only site, although the result cannot overwrite an existing file. Inboxes will still work on an Archive Only site.

Both Remote Server Mounts and Remote Server Syncs will be limited by the prohibitions of Archive Only Mode.

Because deleting files is prohibited in Archive Only mode, the File Expiration folder setting will not function.

Automations

Automations will be affected by Archive Only Mode. Files and folders will be prohibited from being updated, overwritten, renamed, or deleted by an Automation.

The actions of Create Folder and Copy Files will only succeed if nothing is overwritten at the destination.

The actions of Move Files and Delete Files will be prohibited and should not be used when Archive Only Mode is enabled.

Data Retention

All data is retained and cannot be deleted, overwritten, or expired in Archive Only Mode.

The site wide setting for Overwrite behavior should be set to "Automatically append numbers to conflicting file names". This will prevent duplicate files from being rejected by the archive and avoids causing error messages, which would be logged or shown to users. Duplicate files will be renamed, using appended numbers in the new file name, so that they can be stored in the archive.

Enabling Archive Only Mode

To see if your subscription plan supports Archive Only mode for your site, type "Archive-only mode" in the search box at the top of every page and select the matching result. If you are on a plan that supports Archive Only mode then you can contact our Support team to enable this feature for you. Since this feature can never be turned off once enabled, consider using a Child Site for this feature.

Best Practices for Archive Only Mode Sites

Once your site has been configured for Archive Only mode, there are some additional configurations and methodologies to consider in order to optimize the usage of your site.

Configure the Overwrite behavior of your archive site to Automatically append numbers to conflicting file names. This will help when duplicate files are archived. Instead of a duplicate file being rejected, and not stored, it will be stored with an appended number in its file name. More importantly, configure the top-level "home" folder of your archive site to Rename all uploaded files to apply a timestamp automatically. This will ensure that all duplicate files, no matter which method of file upload is used, will not be rejected and will be stored with an appended timestamp in its file name. Use a timestamp pattern such as _YYYY-MM-DD_hh-mm-ss, which is granular to the second, so that duplicate files that are uploaded within a second of each other will still be successfully archived.

If your archive site is going to be used to store data from multiple sources then create multiple corresponding subfolders and user accounts for each source. For example, if your sources are another Files.com site and a 3rd party system, such as Sharepoint, then create top level subfolders in your site named something like /MyOtherFilesComSite Archive/ and /Sharepoint Archive/. Archived data should not be co-mingled so each subfolder should only be used for storing data that corresponds with a single source.

Create corresponding user accounts for each source. This will segregate the logs by user account so that you can more easily determine where archived data came from. Configure the user accounts so that they have Full permission to their corresponding archive folder. For example, the user account sharepoint_archive_user should be given Full permission to the /Sharepoint Archive/ folder.

If an archive user account will be using the FTP(S) or SFTP protocols to upload files for archiving then you can also configure that account with a FTP/SFTP client root folder, which will further restrict their access to only the specified folder.

If an archive user account will only be used by a script, automated process, or other programmatic method, then you can also configure that account as a Shared/bot user type account which will exempt the account from human-centric password requirements such as 2FA and allowing updating of their own password.

Provide the archive user account information (username, password, etc.) to the operator of the source system. They can use any connection protocol, such as FTP(S) or SFTP, to connect to your Archive Only site and upload files that need to be archived.

Archiving From a Files.com Site to an Archive Only Site

Once you have your Archive Only mode site configured and ready to use, you can configure your other Files.com site to automatically send files to the archive. This is accomplished using the Remote Server, Remote Mount, and Automation features.

First, configure a Remote Server that points to your Archive Only mode site. You can choose to use a Remote Server type of either FTP or SFTP. Configure the Remote Server to authenticate using the credentials of a user account on the Archive Only mode site.

Configure a Remote Mount on your other Files.com site that points to an archive subfolder on the Archive Only mode site. For example, create a top-level subfolder named /ArchiveMount on your other Files.com site which is a Remote Mount to a subfolder on your Archive Only mode site named /OtherSiteArchive. This sets up a real-time connection that causes anything placed in /ArchiveMount of your other Files.com site to be stored in the /OtherSiteArchive folder of your Archive Only mode site.

Finally, configure an Automation to archive copies of files from specified folders. Create an Automation to Copy files. For the trigger, specify File actions of whenever a file is created, updated, moved, or copied. For the folder path to be copied, enter the name of the source folder and suffix it with ** to indicate that this should be recursive. For example, if your site has a folder named /Path/To/ImportantData which you need to archive files from, then enter /Path/To/ImportantData/**. For the destination, select the Remote Mount folder for the Archive site. For example, /ArchiveMount/ImportantData. Save and enable the automation.

Now, any files that are created, uploaded, updated, moved to, or copied to the /Path/To/ImportantData folder, or any of its subfolders, will automatically have a copy archived to your Archive Only mode site.

Troubleshooting

Generally speaking, any attempt to delete or update a file will cause a failure or error. Update can refer to actions such as editing, modifying, renaming, moving, or overwriting a file or folder.

A site that has been set to Archive Only Mode should never be used for any processes that need to perform any of these prohibited actions. Think of the site as WORM (Write Once, Read Many times) storage.

Refer to any error messages or warning messages shown in the logs to determine if your users or automations are attempting to delete or modify a file or folder.

Inform users that files and folders of the site cannot be deleted or modified in any way.

Update automations to ensure that they do not attempt to delete or modify any files or folders.