Setup Archive and Deletion Policy for Office 365 Mailboxes: 4-Step Process

Archiving is a process in which older or inactive information or data can be stored securely for a long period of time. For an organization archived data is important and may be needed for future reference, but it is only stored until the end of its retention schedule.

Office 365 is widely used by many people around the globe. Sometimes, Office 365 users need to archive their mailboxes. There can be multiple reasons behind archiving data. One reason can be they want to remove their data from the mailboxes but do not want to delete it permanently so they go for data archiving. Another reason can be the storage capacity of mailboxes etc.

The user can also try to archive Office 365 Mailbox to PST file format using SysTools Office 365 Backup and Restore Software. So, in Office 365 a user can set up the archive and deletion policy easily. This automatically deletes data items from the mailbox and moves the data items to the user’s archive mailbox. For this, a user has to set up a retention policy that is assigned to mailboxes. Basically, in this archiving process, the items are moved to a user’s mailbox after a specific period of time and simultaneously, also deleted from the mailbox after they reach a certain age limit.

Steps to Setup Archive and Deletion Policy for Office 365 Mailboxes

Steps to set up an archive and deletion process are divided into 4 steps that are:

To enable archive mailboxes for users
Create new retention tags
Create a new retention policy
Assign the new retention policy to user mailboxes

Step 1: Enable Archive Mailboxes for Users

First, open the web browser on your system and open https://protection.office.com
Now, you have to log in to Office 365 by using your global administrator account
After the opening of the Security and Compliance Center, you will see an option of Data Governance on the left side menu. Expand Data governance option by clicking on it then click on the Archive option
A list of all the mailboxes associated with that account will be displayed. Now, you have select all the mailboxes for this first you have to click on the top one in the list and then holding down the Shift key, clicking on the last one in the list
Now, under the Bulk Edit option which is present in the details pane, you have to click Enable
A warning will appear to click on the Yes option and after this, the process to enable the archive mailbox will begin
After the completion of the process, click on the Refresh button to update the mailbox list

Step 2: Create new retention tags

First of all click on the app launcher button at the top left corner in the Security and Compliance center and then click on the Admin tile
Now, click on the Admin centers and expand it. Then click on the Exchange
EAC will be displayed. In Exchange Admin Center, you have to go to Compliance Management and then click on Retention tags

Create an Archive Default Policy Tag (DPT)

Click on the New Tag + on the Retention tags page. Then select applied automatically to the entire mailbox (default)
Now, fill all the fields on the New tag applied automatically to entire mailbox (default) page and then click on the Save button
Name: Name of New Retention tag
Retention action: Choose Move to Archive option
Retention period: Select When the item reaches the following age (in days). For Example, items will be moved to the archive mailbox after 1095 days (3 years)
Comment: Optional
A custom archive DPT will be created

Create a Custom Retention Policy Tag (RPT) for the Deleted Items folder

On the Retention tags page, click on the New tag + and then choose applied automatically to a default folder
Now, fill all the fields on that page and click on the Save button
Name: Name of the New Retention tag Apply this tag to the following default folder: Select Deleted Items
Retention action: Select Delete and Allow Recovery
Retention period: Select When the item reaches the following age (in days). For Instance, items will be deleted after 1825 days (5years)
Comment: Optional
A custom RPT for Deleted items folder will be created

Step 3: Create a New Retention Policy

In Exchange Admin Center (EAC), go to Compliance Management and then click on the Retention policies and then click on New +
Now, type a name for the new retention policy in the Name box and under the Retention tags, click on Add +
Add the 9 retention tags shown in the image given below. For this, you have to select the tag and click on add.
After adding retention tags click on OK
Click on the Save to create the new policy

Step 4: Assign the New Retention Policy to the User Mailboxes

In the EAC, click on the Mailboxes in the Recipients option
A list of all user mailboxes will be displayed. Now, select the mailboxes by click on the first one in the list and holding down the Shift key and then clicking on the last one.
Click on More option under the Bulk Edit on the right side of EAC window
Click on Update under the Retention Policy
On the Bulk assign retention policy page, choose the retention policy in the Select the retention policy drop-down list that you have created in Step 3
Now, click on the Save button to save the new retention policy assignment

Conclusion

Once you will follow the steps given above you will be able to set up an archive and deletion policy for Office 365 Mailboxes. With the help of this post, a user will be able to archive data and can use the data if needed in future.

However, the data is only stored until the end of its retention policy. One can try SysTools Office 365 Email Backup & Restore tool to archive Office 365 to PST and restore it back when needed.