Update 10/8/2025: We heard your feedback and are working on revised release plan for this feature. We will update this post (and release plan) accordingly in the near future.
TL; DR: Auto-Archiving...
Updated Oct 08, 2025
Version 2.0
Blog Post
First of all good initiative by Microsoft, definitely see the value in doing this. There are few areas which would further help.
* Reporting: I do understand we can use Export-MailboxDiagnosticLogs on a case by case basis. However having a clear report on when it was triggered or which users would help troubleshoot, understand more of environment, telemetry should be already available with MS
* Mailbox Usage Report: Still doesn't list the archive usage, also the export button doesn't export the quota status information. This is something long pending and for sure the data is available with Microsoft. Doesn't list shared mailboxes, resource mailboxes
Clarification Req:
* Is it applicable to unlicensed user mailboxes
* Is it applicable to EXO P2 licensed shared mailboxes, resource mailboxes
* Incase there is a mailbox that's receiving emails and increasing in an uncontrolled manner, this feature instead of blocking the growth would delay or make the situation worse by filling up the archive. Is there is a mechanism to detect, alert and prevent this from happening.
*I do get its a "failsafe mechanism" and can't be turned off for the org. But turning ELC Processing OFF should ideally stop all archiving\retention processes for that mailbox, are you saying it would still process and pick (un)flagged items based on received date
-It’s not applicable to unlicensed user mailboxes, as they don’t have the necessary Exchange Online license.
-It is applicable to shared or resource mailboxes if they have an Exchange Online Plan 2 (EXO P2) license assigned
Ideally Microsoft should the provide the license requirements in the future updates they have planned. For example, shared and resources mailboxes are not licensed, but they have online archive mailboxes. So, will the auto-archive feature work without Exchange licensing? If not, is EXO P1 alone sufficient or will it require EXO P1 + Exchange Online Archiving license (which technically provides the 'unlimited' archiving functionality EXO P2 provides)?
