This article refers to the Barracuda PST Enterprise version 3.1 or higher.
Your organization may already have corporate retention policies in place for the automatic removal of data of a specific age. It is common to see that these policies are not adhered to on PST files. During this step, you should identify all the appropriate retention policies so that you can apply them during the migration or elimination project.
Since PSTs are Dark Data, only the user can see inside the container. However, once these PSTs are exploded to migrate or restore the email data, all the details are visible. Applying corporate policies before the data is migrated, moved, copied, or restored allows you to eliminate files which should be expired. Otherwise, you will bloat your temporary storage or hosted solution with data that you’re going to remove anyway.
If your organization doesn’t have a corporate retention policy, this may be a good time to establish one. Work with your corporate counsel to determine what timeframe is appropriate for your business and industry. Then, apply it consistently across the entire span of PST data in your project.