Convenience Copy
A convenience copy is a duplicate of a record kept by someone other than the official recordkeeper purely for ease of reference, holding no recordkeeping value and not subject to the official retention schedule.
Convenience copies are extra duplicates of records that staff keep close at hand to make their work easier, such as a printout pinned to a desk or a copy saved in a personal folder. The defining trait is that the official version, the record copy, lives elsewhere under the custody of the responsible office or system. Because the convenience copy carries no independent evidential, legal, or business value, it is not governed by the retention schedule that controls the official record and can usually be destroyed once it is no longer useful, often classified as a nonrecord or transitory material.
Distinguishing convenience copies from record copies matters because keeping redundant duplicates inflates storage, complicates searches during discovery or access requests, and increases risk. For example, if the contracts office holds the signed agreement as the record copy, the project manager’s emailed PDF is a convenience copy. One important caveat: a convenience copy loses that status the moment it falls under a litigation hold, where any responsive copy must be preserved regardless of label.