Open Archiver — Self-Hosted, Open-Source

Features

• Universal Ingestion: Connect to any email provider to perform initial bulk imports and maintain continuous, real-time synchronization. Ingestion sources include:
• Secure & Efficient Storage: Emails are stored in the standard .eml format. The system uses deduplication and compression to minimize storage costs. All files are encrypted at rest.
• Pluggable Storage Backends: Support both local filesystem storage and S3-compatible object storage (like AWS S3 or MinIO).
• Powerful Search & eDiscovery: A high-performance search engine indexes the full text of emails and attachments (PDF, DOCX, etc.).
• Thread discovery: The ability to discover if an email belongs to a thread/conversation and present the context.
• Compliance & Retention: Define granular retention policies to automatically manage the lifecycle of your data. Place legal holds on communications to prevent deletion during litigation (TBD).
• File Hash and Encryption: Email and attachment file hash values are stored in the meta database upon ingestion, meaning any attempt to alter the file content will be identified, ensuring legal and regulatory compliance.
• - Each archived email comes with an "Integrity Report" feature that indicates if the files are original.
• Comprehensive Auditing: An immutable audit trail logs all system activities, ensuring you have a clear record of who accessed what and when.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/LogicLabs-OU/OpenArchiver.git cd OpenArchiver

Why self-host Open Archiver

Self-hosting gives you three things SaaS can’t: data ownership (the files live on disks you control), cost predictability (a one-time setup vs. recurring per-seat fees that grow with your household or team), and longevity (open-source means the app keeps working even if the maintainers move on, since you can pin a working version). The trade-off is that you take on the operational work of running a server, applying updates, and handling backups.

Hardware notes

A server or local machine with at least 4GB of RAM (2GB of RAM if you use external Postgres, Redis (Valkey) and Meilisearch instances).

Where to go from here

• Browse the full self-hosted app directory
• Compare self-hosted alternatives side-by-side
• DevOps roadmap — learn the skills to run your own server