If you look at the linked document, section GoBD konforme E-Mail Archivierung, you'll see that internal "archiving" functions are explicitly listed as not GoBD compliant. The goal, in my understanding, is to have an option to export emails in bulk and store them off-site.
Even in plain backup terms, the archive within the context of the service makes no provisions for redundancy and business continuity.
In addition to that, some businesses may be legally obliged to maintain business communication for certain period of time.
Currently in Tutanota, there is an option to export individual emails but I assume this is extremely tedious for users, especially businesses, with larger volumes of email messages.
You can export single or multi emails in a zip-file which contains the mails in eml-format.
But i miss the way to export a whole container and i miss the way to import former exportet mails.
Regards
In my view, this feature is critical for a serious use of Tutanota. I am a bit surprised that there are also business users without this export/backup feature. It feels a bit like a golden cage.
At the moment I'm using Claws-mail on the Linux desktop along with the Thunderbird for syncing calendars/contacts with my phone via Baikal server.
I've opened TutaNota Premium account and was able to import my contacts/calendars - it looks very good and potentially I could get rid of Thunderbird as well as of administering my own Baikal server, but wonder about the present email archive I have in MH format on my local machine.
Would this "Email archiving" feature allow one to search archived email stored on one's local desktop computer?
In that case I'd seriously consider to use TutaNota with my custom domain(s), add business features etc...
I absolutely hate how hard it is to find old emails. I've been using Tutanota for years and old emails are basically impossible to find. The search is unhelpful since it can only seem to decrypt very small time ranges. Tutanota desperately needs a way to export all of you emails to make them actually accessible somehow, even if it takes a long time of running in the background.
Just to note, this issue has been open for 3 years now...
and in the meantime even a "Select all and export" button would work wonders, I can't imagine that implementing this would be hard since export and selecting is already implemented. Just like @skjiisa said even if it takes a long time this is not an issue. Since we cannot get IMAP/POP3, even if the user fully understands and accepts the risk (which would solve this issue immediately).
A simple 'Select and export' button or some backup function is not what people requesting GoBD-compliant archiving are looking for.
A astonished quite a bit that Tutanota Business as a German company does not offer GoBD-compliant archiving yet, as it is required for most businesses in Germany.
There are a few basic principles that have to be implemented:
traceability and verifiability
truth, clarity and continuous recording
completeness
obligation to keep individual records
accuracy
timely entries and records
order and immutability.
I suspect that people who are able to implement a fully-encrypted E-Mail service are more than qualified to use the magic of cryptography for offering an archive according to those principles.
Concerning the aspect of order and immutability it would be easy enough to add a mail header that contains a simple incremental index as well as the message's cryptographic hash (could be similar to what DKIM hashing does) combined with a hash of the previous message's hash and the current message's hash – like a very basic 'blockchain'.
Of course archived messages must be stored at a different location than the user's own inbox, where no messages can be altered or deleted without complying with the GoBD; auditors must have an indexed search of he body of those messages.
A simple 'Select and export' button or some backup function is not what people requesting GoBD-compliant archiving are looking for.
Very well, but as you just noted the implementation of this is not trivial.
All I'm saying I just want a local backup of my emails be it GoBD-compliant or even plaintext files. And implementing "select all and export" is clearly simple so can we just get that in the meantime?
Just as a reminder this issue is 4 years old at this point, and making an archive feature that is xyz-compliant may be hard for a small company but it doesn't mean we shouldn't get just select all and export.
I am a new paid Tuta customer and only realised that there is no export all function for personal archiving of emails. Please can the feature be added? I'm okay with the export not being E2E encrypted.
While GoDB has been mentioned as a requirement that users need to comply to where this feature would help I would also like to mention that this feature is a requirement for tuta to be compliant to article 15 of GDPR. Tuta is require to sent users a copy of all their Peron identifiable datat which every email is a part of. This is still not possible. 1,5 years ago @charlag mentioned that it is being worked on. What about it now?
I regret moving to tuta when their is no way of moving somewhere else. If it stays like this it is just another walled-garden. If this won't be resolved I will file a compliant to the data protection officer of Niedersachsen.
@besendorf We agree that access to stored data should be made easy and as simple as possible. That is why we are seeking to improve the export of mails with a single-click export (#1292) (we are actually actively working on this right now). You can currently export mails by selecting all mails in a folder and exporting.
Rest assured that Tuta is already GDPR-compliant, we take this seriously. We have some more information about our privacy and what personal data is stored here (https://tuta.com/privacy-policy), which also gives information to contact our data protection officer if you have questions.
Activity
ak1n commentedon Feb 3, 2020
jtrees commentedon Feb 17, 2020
I request that you build this feature in such a way that it conforms to GoBD:
https://www.freiberufler-blog.de/e-mail-archivierungspflicht-fuer-freiberufler-nach-gobd/
charlag commentedon Feb 17, 2020
@jtrees that's the idea
fosres commentedon Apr 17, 2020
It seems that there is already a "Archive" feature for Tutanota. What other features are you looking forward to add for this "Archive" feature?
alensiljak commentedon Apr 17, 2020
If you look at the linked document, section GoBD konforme E-Mail Archivierung, you'll see that internal "archiving" functions are explicitly listed as not GoBD compliant. The goal, in my understanding, is to have an option to export emails in bulk and store them off-site.
Even in plain backup terms, the archive within the context of the service makes no provisions for redundancy and business continuity.
In addition to that, some businesses may be legally obliged to maintain business communication for certain period of time.
Currently in Tutanota, there is an option to export individual emails but I assume this is extremely tedious for users, especially businesses, with larger volumes of email messages.
AQbernhard commentedon Mar 15, 2021
You can export single or multi emails in a zip-file which contains the mails in eml-format.
But i miss the way to export a whole container and i miss the way to import former exportet mails.
Regards
arran-nz commentedon Sep 15, 2021
Is there a timeline on when this feature would be prioritized?
frapelo commentedon Sep 29, 2021
In my view, this feature is critical for a serious use of Tutanota. I am a bit surprised that there are also business users without this export/backup feature. It feels a bit like a golden cage.
gour commentedon Mar 12, 2022
How is this feature supposed to work?
At the moment I'm using Claws-mail on the Linux desktop along with the Thunderbird for syncing calendars/contacts with my phone via Baikal server.
I've opened TutaNota Premium account and was able to import my contacts/calendars - it looks very good and potentially I could get rid of Thunderbird as well as of administering my own Baikal server, but wonder about the present email archive I have in MH format on my local machine.
Would this "Email archiving" feature allow one to search archived email stored on one's local desktop computer?
In that case I'd seriously consider to use TutaNota with my custom domain(s), add business features etc...
skjiisa commentedon Apr 2, 2022
I absolutely hate how hard it is to find old emails. I've been using Tutanota for years and old emails are basically impossible to find. The search is unhelpful since it can only seem to decrypt very small time ranges. Tutanota desperately needs a way to export all of you emails to make them actually accessible somehow, even if it takes a long time of running in the background.
22h49 commentedon Mar 29, 2023
Just to note, this issue has been open for 3 years now...
and in the meantime even a "Select all and export" button would work wonders, I can't imagine that implementing this would be hard since export and selecting is already implemented. Just like @skjiisa said even if it takes a long time this is not an issue. Since we cannot get IMAP/POP3, even if the user fully understands and accepts the risk (which would solve this issue immediately).
charlag commentedon Mar 29, 2023
We are working on "select all" right now
ventulis commentedon Jun 6, 2023
A simple 'Select and export' button or some backup function is not what people requesting GoBD-compliant archiving are looking for.
A astonished quite a bit that Tutanota Business as a German company does not offer GoBD-compliant archiving yet, as it is required for most businesses in Germany.
There are a few basic principles that have to be implemented:
I suspect that people who are able to implement a fully-encrypted E-Mail service are more than qualified to use the magic of cryptography for offering an archive according to those principles.
Concerning the aspect of order and immutability it would be easy enough to add a mail header that contains a simple incremental index as well as the message's cryptographic hash (could be similar to what DKIM hashing does) combined with a hash of the previous message's hash and the current message's hash – like a very basic 'blockchain'.
Of course archived messages must be stored at a different location than the user's own inbox, where no messages can be altered or deleted without complying with the GoBD; auditors must have an indexed search of he body of those messages.
jonathan-s commentedon Nov 7, 2023
Adding my voice here that archiving and export functionality is critical.
22h49 commentedon Nov 22, 2023
Very well, but as you just noted the implementation of this is not trivial.
All I'm saying I just want a local backup of my emails be it GoBD-compliant or even plaintext files. And implementing "select all and export" is clearly simple so can we just get that in the meantime?
Just as a reminder this issue is 4 years old at this point, and making an archive feature that is xyz-compliant may be hard for a small company but it doesn't mean we shouldn't get just select all and export.
eclecticpassions commentedon Jun 10, 2024
I am a new paid Tuta customer and only realised that there is no export all function for personal archiving of emails. Please can the feature be added? I'm okay with the export not being E2E encrypted.
besendorf commentedon Nov 8, 2024
While GoDB has been mentioned as a requirement that users need to comply to where this feature would help I would also like to mention that this feature is a requirement for tuta to be compliant to article 15 of GDPR. Tuta is require to sent users a copy of all their Peron identifiable datat which every email is a part of. This is still not possible. 1,5 years ago @charlag mentioned that it is being worked on. What about it now?
I regret moving to tuta when their is no way of moving somewhere else. If it stays like this it is just another walled-garden. If this won't be resolved I will file a compliant to the data protection officer of Niedersachsen.
wrdhub commentedon Nov 9, 2024
@besendorf We agree that access to stored data should be made easy and as simple as possible. That is why we are seeking to improve the export of mails with a single-click export (#1292) (we are actually actively working on this right now). You can currently export mails by selecting all mails in a folder and exporting.
Rest assured that Tuta is already GDPR-compliant, we take this seriously. We have some more information about our privacy and what personal data is stored here (https://tuta.com/privacy-policy), which also gives information to contact our data protection officer if you have questions.
HT-7 commentedon Jun 5, 2025
The export would be stored as a local file, so it is the responsibility of the user to guard the data.