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ddebic's avatar
ddebic
Copper Contributor
Dec 29, 2021

Exchange retention policy - deleted items folder problem

Dear Community,

 

i tried to setup e-mail retention as needed by using Exchange Admin Center (classic version) and ran into a problem.

 

What I want is all e-mail in all folders to be retained for 10 years, but deleted items to be removed after 90 days (deleted items folder and recovery folder together 90 days - whichever can be adjusted).

For this, I created Retention tag as follows:

 

 

But when I add this tag to "Default MRM policy" whic will be applied to mailboxes, somehow column "Type" remains empty, and I am not sure if this will work as intended or there is some kind of error?

 

Also, I dont know how to setup recoverable items duration by using policy? Can someone suggest me what I should do?

Thank you

 


  • That's probably just a cosmetic issue. Just in case though, a brief history lesson 🙂
    Few years back, Microsoft introduced a change that basically ignores the Deleted items tag for the Default MRM policy. The reasoning was something along the lines of "users dont expect Deleted items to be automatically removed after 30 days and this generates a lot of support tickets, but at the end all they did was create more confusion if you ask me. To work around this, create a new policy and assign the tag therein. Here's a link to the original announcement, just in case: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2015/02/20/extended-email-retention-deleted-items-office-365/

    As I can reproduce this behavior with a custom policy too, and one that actually has a working Deleted items tag, I'm almost certain that it's just cosmetic. As for recoverable items policy, there are a bunch of folders therein, and Microsoft is actually making some changes on how retention works: https://www.michev.info/Blog/Post/3457/updated-retention-settings-for-the-recoverable-items-subtree
    You'd probably only want to configure the RetainDeletedItemsFor value.
    • ddebic's avatar
      ddebic
      Copper Contributor
      When considering this as cosmetic issues and by adding new policy, now i have only "Expired item" marks but mail is not deleted.
      • That means that the tag is working as expected, and it's only a matter of time before items are processed/deleted. Keep in mind that in Exchange Online, the MRM assistant has a 7-day workcycle, so it can take some time.

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