Zimbra 8.8.15, 9 and 10.1
Zimbra backup priced per server, not per mailbox
The Arkame agent exports every Zimbra account (mail, contacts, calendar, filters and signatures) to your cloud bucket and restores one account at a time from the panel. It costs US$ 5 per server per month, whether the server has 20 mailboxes or 2,000.
No credit card required until your first charge.
Zimbra accounts
mail-01 · latest backup today, 00:45
| Account | Months | Size |
|---|---|---|
| alex.morgan@harborline.example | 4+ history | 3.4 GB |
| dispatch@harborline.example | 4+ history | 4.5 GB |
| priya.shah@harborline.example | 4+ history | 2.6 GB |
| support@harborline.example | 4+ history | 3.9 GB |
| jordan.lee@harborline.exampleno longer backed up | –+ history | 1.4 GB |
Zextras Suite is over. What about your Zimbra backup?
If you backed up Zimbra Open Source with Zextras Suite, you need another way. Zextras now says Suite is no longer available and should not be used going forward, that Zimbra Open Source is at end of life with no security updates, and points to Carbonio instead (zextras.com, 10/19/2026).
In Carbonio, email backup is not part of the Community edition, only of the paid editions sold through partners (zextras.com, 10/19/2026). If you are staying on Zimbra for a while, or want to migrate without rushing, you need a backup that does not depend on that.
How it works
One account at a time, with Zimbra running
The agent talks to Zimbra's own API on the server and exports one account at a time. Mail goes into one file per month: a closed month does not change and is not uploaded again.
In your bucket
The export goes to your S3-compatible storage (Backblaze B2, Wasabi, AWS and others). Arkame does not keep your mail: the panel sees account names, months and sizes, never a subject or a sender.
Restore without overwriting
From the panel, an account goes back into itself or into another account, which can be a new one. A restore only merges: what is in the mailbox stays, what was missing comes back, nothing is deleted. A deleted account is recreated with its settings, aliases, filters and signatures.
What needs attention
The panel shows every account in the latest backup, how many months it holds, and which ones failed or are no longer exported (deleted, renamed or taken out of the plan). If the export command fails, the backup is canceled instead of keeping yesterday's, and you get an email.
Measured on a large mailbox
On a 40,000-message mailbox (3.70 GB) on Zimbra 9, the export took 2 min 50 s and the restore took 15 min 46 s, with the same folders, the same counts and the same size.
The export also stays on the server's disk, so the next session uploads only what changed. Before you turn it on, check free space: close to the size of the mailboxes, with room for the day the oldest history file is rebuilt.
The first export of a large server can take a few nights: the command stops before its deadline (up to 2 hours) and the next session picks up where it left off, starting with the accounts that went longest without a backup.
What it costs
US$ 5 per server per month, not per mailbox. A server with 200 mailboxes of 5 GB (1 TB) costs US$ 5 on Arkame, plus storage, which you pay straight to the provider: 1 TB on Backblaze B2 is US$ 6.95 per month at today's rate. The versions that retention keeps add to the storage.
Do you host Zimbra for clients? You charge per mailbox and pay per server. See the partner program.
Ask your AI assistant
With the Arkame MCP, Claude or another assistant can tell you which accounts are in the backup and which ones failed, and can request a restore of one account. The restore only happens after you approve it in the panel with your two-factor code, and it never overwrites.
Try it with the demo token, no account needed: the demo has a fictional Zimbra with eight accounts.
Getting started
- Create your account and add your bucket.
- Install the Arkame agent on the Zimbra server with one command.
- Create a plan with the Zimbra recipe: all mail or only the last few years, and the accounts to leave out.
Step by step, what is included and what is not: Zimbra guide.
What it does not do
- Account passwords are not in the backup: the Zimbra API does not hand them out. A recreated account gets a random password, which you change in the Zimbra console.
- With more than one mailbox server, each agent exports only the accounts that live on it. This setup has not been tested on a real install yet: talk to support before you turn it on.
- It does not migrate Zimbra to another mail system, and it is not legal archiving (searching and holding mail for audits).
- Forwarding and auto-replies come back only when you ask for them, on the server's command line: a restore must not start sending someone's mailbox elsewhere.
Frequently asked questions
Can I migrate from Zimbra 8.8.15 to 10.1?
Yes, one account at a time, with agent 0.5.9 or newer on both servers. In the panel, restore the accounts folder from the 8.8.15 backup to the 10.1 server, then run the restore command for each account there (it is in the Zimbra guide). In our test, mail by folder, contacts, calendar, tasks, documents, filters, aliases, signatures and tags came back the same; the password does not travel, and a recreated account gets a random one.
Does it work on Zimbra Open Source built by the community?
We tested it on a customer's 10.1, on a community build of 9.0 and on 8.8.15. The agent uses Zimbra's admin API, which is the same across these versions.
Do I need to stop Zimbra for the backup?
No. The agent reads through the API, one account at a time, with the service running.
Does my mail go through Arkame's servers?
No. It goes from your server straight to your bucket. The panel only gets the index: account names, months and sizes.
Can I restore a whole account into a new account, to check it first?
Yes. The new account is created with a random password and gets the mail, contacts and calendar. The original account does not change.
How does it compare with Zextras and Carbonio?
See Arkame or Zextras: when each one makes sense.