Forum Discussion
Online Archive on Outlook app (iOS)
No ActiveSync-based client (including Outlook for iOS) supports access to an archive mailbox because the protocol has not been updated to accommodate this resource (same reason as for shared mailbox). The OWA mobile app is essentially a wrapper around the browser version running on a mobile client, so it has access to all resources. However, that client has not been in active development since the Acompli (Outlook for iOS and Android) acquisition in November 2014 and limps on in a state of limbo.
Thanks for your replies, I dont think there is really much sense in providing a offlince cache of the archive, but atleast the Outlook app client should allow for searching the archive.
To allow searching of the archive from an ActiveSync (really Exchange ActiveSync or EAS) device, the current architecture would have to be updated. Seeing that Microsoft has just refreshed the way that they support the Outlook for iOS and Android clients (https://www.petri.com/outlook-ios-android-dumping-aws-q3), this is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
But anyway, the mobile devices are really for triage - to allow you to know what's happening in your active mailbox and to identify the most important messages for processing (using the Focused Inbox). They are not intended to replicate all of the functionality available in Outlook desktop... And an archive is designed to hold data that is not referenced very often (which is why it's called an archive). If you need mobile access to data, hold it in your primary mailbox and you'll be able to search using a mobile client.
You can always open a browser on the mobile device and use the real OWA, wich has access to your archive. It's inconvenient yes, but as Tony mentioned if the data is already in the archive, it's applied you dont really need day to day access to it.
