# The mailbox archive

Your earlier replies are often the best help: how you handled the same
question last time, what you already wrote to the customer. That is why the
assistant may also search the mailbox's old mail — the **archive**.

## What the assistant does in the archive

- **Searches by topic** across all senders: how you handled the same
  question for anyone else. It reads the whole conversation, not just one
  message.
- **Reads the history with the customer** who is writing now — as context
  only.
- **Takes facts from your replies**, not from what customers claimed.

From someone else's thread it never carries over names or details, only the
procedure and the facts.

## A source of the second order

The archive comes second. The [knowledge sources](/en/knowledge-sources) come
first — the help site, documents, notes you wrote. When a source and the
archive disagree, the source wins and the assistant says so in the draft's
reason. A fact it found only in the archive is named in the reason, with the
date of the mail.

## Settings

Switch the archive on or off in **Knowledge**, in the **Mailbox archive** card:

**Search the mailbox archive** — when it is off, the assistant does not touch
old mail and answers only from the knowledge sources and the message itself.

**Age of archive facts (days)** — topic searches return only mail younger
than this many days (365 by default). Older mail comes only when nothing
younger exists, and the assistant takes it as a hint for the procedure, not
as valid facts. The history with one customer is not limited.

## When to switch the archive off

- The mailbox has a long history in which prices or procedures often changed,
  and you do not want the assistant reaching for old replies. Shortening the
  age of facts is often enough.
- The mailbox holds mail the assistant should not see.

During the check in the new-assistant wizard the archive is always off, so a
draft cannot copy the reply it is compared with.