Message and attachment deletion

The disclosed techniques provide systems and methods for deletion of end-user messages, message threads, attachments, and/or other message information. More specifically, a key-value store residing in computer memory on the storage system is described. Each value in the key-value store is indexed by a key and structured to include multiple column portions associated with multiple column families. In one embodiment, a deletion column family having an associated retention policy for data stored therein is defined.