# IMAP Email Archiving for Compliance

Capture any IMAP-compatible mailbox — on-prem Exchange, FastMail, Zoho, and ProtonMail — into a SEC Rule 17a-4 and FINRA Rule 4511 compliant WORM archive alongside your other channels.

Source: https://commacompliance.com/channels/imap-email-compliance
Last updated: 2026-07-01

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## Capture and Archive your Email

Not every firm runs on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and most email archiving solutions are built as if they do. Comma connects to any IMAP-compatible mailbox using standard credentials you enter once in the dashboard. Capture is automatic from that point forward: every inbound and outbound message, across every folder, written to a WORM archive that satisfies [SEC Rule 17a-4](/regulations/sec-17a-4) and [FINRA Rule 4511](/regulations/finra-rule-4511) recordkeeping requirements.

## Supported providers

If your provider exposes an IMAP endpoint, Comma can connect to it. Email lands in the same archive as your [WhatsApp archiving](/whatsapp-compliance-archiving), [Signal archiving](/signal-compliance-solution), and [iMessage archiving](/imessage-compliance): one search interface, one export, one supervision queue for every channel.

### FastMail

Requires an app-specific password; your regular login or 2FA password will fail with a silent auth error, so generate one under Settings > Password & Security. FastMail also supports IMAP IDLE, so new messages land in the archive near-instantly rather than waiting on the poll cycle.

### Zoho Mail

IMAP is off by default at the org level. A Zoho admin needs to enable it in the Admin Console under Mail Settings > Account Restrictions before Comma can connect, and check that users aren't blocked from toggling it themselves. Once enabled, capture works the same as any other IMAP mailbox.

### ProtonMail (via ProtonMail Bridge)

ProtonMail's end-to-end encryption normally blocks third-party IMAP access. ProtonMail Bridge exposes a local IMAP endpoint so Comma can still capture and archive every message without compromising ProtonMail's encryption model.

### On-prem Microsoft Exchange

If your Exchange server has IMAP enabled, Comma connects directly with no Microsoft 365 migration or cloud dependency required.

[Set up IMAP archiving →](https://docs.commacompliance.com/getting-started/imap-email-setup/)