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Office 365 Exchange Online account OWA

Roger Carbajal
Roger Carbajal asked
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I recently got a notification that one of my O365 Exchange Online accounts was full. I purged all Mailboxes of messages and their contents (even Deleted Items). I'm still getting the notification that the Mailbox is full. This is an Exchange Online account so NO OUTLOOK. Everything that I've done and can do must be done through the O365 Portal. How do I clean out the mailbox when there is nothing in my Inbox, Sent Items, Drafts, Junk Mail, Archive and Deleted Items? Thanks.
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Adam BrownSenior Systems Admin
Top Expert 2010

Commented:

Is there a retention policy or legal hold set on the mailbox?

Roger CarbajalIT Systems Analyst

Author

Commented:
Is that a default setting? Nothing extra was set on this account.
Senior Systems Admin
Top Expert 2010
Commented:

Yes. There's a default retention policy that generally applies to all mailboxes. That policy maintains a 30 day window for all emails in the deleted items folder, so you either have to wait for that window to expire before the messages will be completely deleted or you can modify the default retention policy to remove or modify the retention settings for the deleted items folder (Exchange Admin > Compliance > Retention Policies > Open Default > Select the Deleted Items Retention tag (It's at the bottom) and remove it). This won't apply automatically, though. It has to be done before deleting the messages. If you want to modify the policy, go to the retention tags tab and modify the deleted items policy and set it to 1 day, then wait about 24-48 hours (it will have to go through 2 maintenance cycles so the emails can first be tagged with the change, then it will apply the policy next time that maintenance runs). 


That said, you *may* only need to wait 24 hours (if you haven't done that already).