Forum Discussion
Thao_Dao_Phuong
Jan 02, 2026Brass Contributor
Archive-online
Could you please advise if there is any way to delete the mailbox data that is currently stored in the online archive?
Thank you.
6 Replies
- Mohamed_HashimCopper Contributor
Yes you can delete mailbox data stored in the online archive.
- Open archive mailbox - delete folders/items which is the fastest way to delete
- Delete data using retention policy
- Hard delete if requirement is to delete all online archive data - unassign the license and Microsoft will soft delete the archive
- eDiscovery purge option
Hope this give you more info.
- Thao_Dao_PhuongBrass Contributor
Thank you Hashim
The storage in the Online Archive is extremely large almost a terabyte, so manual deletion isn’t feasible. I chose to use an MRM retention policy as the solution.
- Mohamed_HashimCopper Contributor
Got it..Let me know if you need help to create MRM policy. Thanks
- Scott_SchnollBrass Contributor
Hi Thao_Dao_Phuong, you have three options for this:
- Use Outlook to open the archive mailbox and manually delete the data.
- Delete the archive mailbox altogether (and then create a new, empty one if you need archiving).
- Use Microsoft 365 retention policies to delete data in the archive based on age (see https://learn.microsoft.com/purview/set-up-an-archive-and-deletion-policy-for-mailboxes for details).
Hope this helps!
- Thao_Dao_PhuongBrass Contributor
Thank you for your suggestion.
- Scott_SchnollBrass Contributor
Hi Thao_Dao_Phuong, you have a couple of options for doing this:
- Use Outlook to open the archive mailbox and delete the data manually.
- Delete the archive mailbox altogether (and then provision a new one if you still need archiving).
- Use Microsoft 365 retention policies to delete data after a certain age. See https://learn.microsoft.com/purview/set-up-an-archive-and-deletion-policy-for-mailboxes for details.
Hope this helps!