Message archive search showing duplicate emails

Problem reported by rishikesh Somshetti - 6/27/2025 at 1:17 AM

Not A Problem

Message archive search showing 4 email copy for each email including alias and direct email to he user and also the other emails marked in alias Ids.

9 Replies

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Char Lee Yeong Replied

11/23/2025 at 11:08 PM

I am having the same problem.

Derek Curtis Replied

11/24/2025 at 6:41 AM

Employee Post

What version of SmarterMail are you running? My personal server is on 9448 (11/13) and I don't see this issue: I only see 1 copy of each message. That said, as SmarterMail archives at the spool level, I can see where you may see duplicates if a message is sent to an alias and to a user directly since they are part of the alias and the message is delivered to their inbox. So, my guess is this is expected behavior as we've not had any Archiving changes/fixes that would cause or resolve this behavior.

Derek Curtis

CCO

SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com

Char Lee Yeong Replied

11/25/2025 at 6:44 PM

This is the version I am using.

SmarterMail Enterprise 100.0.9434.24296 (Oct 30, 2025)

Example below is the email repeat 3 times in the same user. itsupport is a Aliases containing 3 persons.

Char Lee Yeong Replied

11/28/2025 at 2:14 AM

I dont think this is the expected behaviour. If the aliases containing 30 email. Each of them will get 30 of the same email. The archive will have 30 user x 30 email. Total of 900 of the same email instead of 30.

Derek Curtis Replied

11/30/2025 at 4:55 PM

Employee Post

I'll see if one of the devs can answer this, or at least give me an idea of what you're seeing. Thanks.

Derek Curtis

CCO

SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com

Derek Curtis Replied

12/1/2025 at 10:30 AM

Employee Post

So, looking at your example, it appears you're doing a Message Archive Search for a message from synology@infinity.com.my to your alias: itsupport@infiginty.com.my. Is that the case?

If so, then the return of the search is correct if there are 3 people in the itsupport@ alias. The result shows 3 emails, because there are 3 users in the alias. Each user, however, would only receive 1 copy of the message. Doing a search where one of the users is listed in the To: should only show 1 of those emails for that user.

Here's what I heard back from the devs: "The archive search makes it look like 3 copies sent to the alias when really it was one email given to each user of the alias. So it's working as expected. However, we think we can make it more obvious if the archive search displayed the "received by" recipient in the case of an alias."

Derek Curtis

CCO

SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com

Jay Dubb Replied

12/1/2025 at 3:07 PM

For sake of efficiency, why not index the message as having gone to multiple members of the alias, but store only 1 copy of it in the archive to save disk space-- similar to how a de-dup funcion works for backups. When a search is done for mail sent to that alias, show just the 1 copy because in reality that alias only received the ONE copy from the sender. But if an archive search is done against a member of that alias, also include that message as part of the search results since the user did receive a copy. I cannot think of a good reason for storing (or displaying) 3 or 30 or whatever number of copies of the same message.

Derek Curtis Replied

12/1/2025 at 3:46 PM

Employee Post

Not a bad suggestion, Jay. I'll pass it along. It may be due to how archiving is used for litigation holds, etc. We'll need to look into it a bit.

Derek Curtis

CCO

SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com

Char Lee Yeong Replied

12/1/2025 at 11:17 PM

So, looking at your example, it appears you're doing a Message Archive Search for a message from synology@infinity.com.my to your alias: itsupport@infiginty.com.my. Is that the case?

Let me share the 2 result of the share. 1 is to itsupport@, 1 is to tommytan@

I search 1 by the subject and from synology@... only. It also show up 4 only so i think your logic make sense.

So I do another seach from synology@... to tommytan@...., it show 0 result.

I do from synology@..., it show 27 result.

So the previous version did not archive correctly.

I change the version of my smartermail in the month of September but unfortunately I do not remember which version I come from. My 1 months archive for Aug is 126GB, For the month of Sept is 1.14TB.

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