Archiving Old Versions

You can archive old versions of documents that you no longer need. When you archive old versions of documents, the selected document versions are transferred from the document vault to the archive file.

Do the following steps to archive old versions of documents:

Steps

  1. Open M-Files Admin.
  2. In the left-side tree view, expand the desired connection to M-Files Server.
  3. In the left-side tree view, expand the document vault of your choice.
  4. Still in the left-side tree view, select Content Replication and Archiving.
  5. Select Action > Archive Old Versions... from the menu bar.
    You can also right-click on an empty area in the Scheduled Export and Import list and select Archive Old Versions... from the context menu.
    The Archive Old Versions dialog is opened.
  6. Select either:
    1. All documents: Select this option if you want to archive old versions of all documents.
      or
    2. Documents marked for archiving: Select this option if you want to archive old versions of the documents that you have marked for archiving.
      Note: You can mark a document for archiving in M-Files Desktop by right-clicking a document and selecting Archiving > Mark for Archiving from the context menu. For more information, see Archiving.
  7. Select the conditions (you can select all that apply) for limiting the number of old versions to be archived:
    You can click Preview to view the number of old versions to be archived with the selected settings.
    Option Description
    Checked in before Select this option to archive old versions that have been checked in before the given date.
    At least <number> versions older than the current version Select this option to archive old versions that are a given number of versions older than the current version.
    At least <number> days older than the current version Select this option to archive versions that are a given number of days older than the current version.
    No version tag Select this option to exclude versions that have a version label from the archive.
  8. In the Content package location section, click the ... to select the location to save the archive.
  9. Optional: If the archive location you have selected requires access rights that the local system account does not have, click Set Account... to define a different user account for saving the archive.
    1. Select the This account option.
    2. In the This account field, enter the user account to be used for archiving.
    3. In the Password and Confirm password fields, enter the password of the account.
    4. Click OK to close the Set Account dialog.
  10. Click OK to save your changes and to close the Archive Old Versions dialog.

Results

The selected old versions of documents are archived to the location you have defined.

The archived documents can later be restored to the document vault via Content Replication and Archiving.

Note: If you have archived documents in earlier versions of M-Files than 9.0, please note that you cannot restore archive files in the .MFA file format to a vault using version 9.0 or later. If you want to restore an archive file in the .MFA file format, you must use a vault that has version 8.0 or older installed. After this, you can upgrade the vault and perform archiving that is compatible with version 9.0 and newer.