Archive Only Mode

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.

Archive Only mode is irreversible by design. This protects retention guarantees by ensuring files can never become editable or deletable again.

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

Never use a site that has been set to Archive Only Mode for any processes that need to remove or overwrite files for any reason. Think of the site as WORM (Write Once, Read Many times) storage.

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

Once a child site site has been set to Archive Only mode, configuring another Files.com site to automatically send files to the archive is accomplished with an Automation.

To prevent duplicated file names from being discarded, first configure your archive site's Overwrite behavior to "Automatically append numbers to conflicting file names". Layer this approach with a Rename uploaded files setting to the folder of your archive site, to give you more flexibility in how files are automatically renamed.

Within the parent site for your organization, create a Copy Files Automation that runs whenever a file is created, updated, moved, or copied. Select the source folder and suffix it with ** to indicate that this should be recursive.

For the destination folder of the Automation, choose a folder within your Archive Only site that represents the source. Separate folders for each incoming source prevents rejected uploads or unexpected renames when different sources provide duplicated file names.

Any files that are created, uploaded, updated, moved to, or copied to the source folder or its subfolders on the parent site, automatically create copy in your your Archive Only mode site.

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.

Archive Only mode affects every user of your archive site. Site Administrators do not have any ability to change files when Archive Only mode is enabled.

Restrictions apply to all connection methods from every type of application or API. This includes connections made using login sessions, SFTP/SSH Keys, or API Keys.

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.

Administrator Actions

Only files and folders are read-only for a site in Archive Only mode, but Site Administrators can still perform regular management and configuration of the site. Configuration of features remains mostly unchanged except that any folders or files created by those features cannot be 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 accounts.

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.

Sync

Syncs are affected by Archive Only Mode. Files and folders on both the source and destination cannot be updated, overwritten, renamed, or deleted by a sync. When the destination folder of a sync is empty, the first sync will succeed but subsequent syncs will fail because destination files cannot be overwritten.

Sync on a site in Archive Only mode cannot delete source files after copying. Avoid using this setting when Archive Only Mode is enabled.

Review the Sync Logs for errors generated when a Sync attempts to delete or modify a file or folder.

Folder Settings

Folder Settings that run before a file is stored still work in Archive Only Mode. Any setting that deletes, overwrites, or modifies an existing file or folder does not work in Archive Only Mode.

Some actions will continue to function as normal on a site running in Archive Only Mode. The Rename uploaded files folder setting will automatically rename newly-created files. GPG encryption and decryption work, but the output cannot overwrite an existing file.

Both Remote Server Mounts and 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

Archive Only Mode affects how Automations work. Files and folders cannot be updated, overwritten, renamed, or deleted by an Automation.

Create Folder, Copy Files, and Import Files Automations succeed when nothing is overwritten at the destination. When a file would be overwritten, the Automation step fails.

Run Sync Automations successfully trigger a Sync, and the Sync is impacted by Archive Only mode.

Move Files and Delete Files Automations always fail in a site running Archive Only Mode. Do not use Move Files or Delete Files Automations.

Automation failures generate alert emails for site administrators. Review error messages or warning messages shown in the Automation logs to determine if your automations are attempting to delete or modify a file or folder.

Data Retention Settings

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

Set the site-wide setting for Overwrite behavior to Automatically append numbers to conflicting file names. This prevents the site rejecting duplicate files and avoids errors being shown to users.

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.

Clarify the Purpose of Your Site

Use the header, footer, login page help text, and MOTD customization options to make it clear to your users that the data uploaded to this site can never be deleted.

Automatically Rename New Files to Avoid Data Loss

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.

Configure the top-level "home" folder of your archive site to Rename all uploaded files to apply a timestamp automatically. This ensures that all duplicate files, no matter which method of file upload is used, are stored with a timestamp in its file name. Using this timestamp pattern _YYYY-MM-DD_hh-mm-ss, that is granular to the second, means that duplicate files that are uploaded within a second of each other will be successfully archived.

Separate Data By Source

To store data from multiple sources, create multiple corresponding subfolders and user accounts for each source. Do not co-mingle archived data from multiple sources into the same folder. Use each subfolder to store data that corresponds with a single source. This improves provenance and auditability, making it simple to identify where the archived data came from.

Create corresponding user accounts for each source so that logs are segregated by source user account. This makes it easy to track exactly where archived data came from. Configure the user accounts so that they have Full permission to their corresponding archive folder; deletions and changes will still be prohibited.

Use a Child Site for Archive Only Mode

Once Archive Only Mode is enabled, it can never be disabled for a site. There is no way to remove any files or folders from an Archive Only site.

We recommend using a child site, rather than your primary Files.com site, for Archive Only mode. Parent sites have special access because users in a parent site can have delegated access to any Child Sites, and parent site administrators have access to the contents of all Child Sites.

Enabling Archive Only mode on a parent site would permanently prevent you from removing anything from a Child Site without logging in directly to the child site.

Enabling Archive Only Mode

Not all plans support Archive Only mode. If you are on a plan that supports Archive Only mode, contact our Support team to enable this feature for you.

Because it is irreversible, we recommend using a child site instead of your primary Files.com site for Archive Only mode.