Forum Discussion
Removing license from user, what gets removed and how quickly (returing staff member)
Well, you've got to be able to place a hold on a mailbox before it can become inactive, so that means E3 or better.
If you apply a hold (litigation or retention) to a mailbox and remove the license from the account, Exchange will then try to remove the mailbox because it's now unlicensed. It will discover that a hold is in place and will therefore make the mailbox inactive. If you remove the hold, the mailbox will be removed. The autoreply won't work for an inactive mailbox (it is inactive), AFAIK.
TonyRedmond In my experience this isn't what happens. If a mailbox is placed on lit-hold then the license is removed, after 30 days the mailbox remains in an active state and does not become inactive. In this scenario, the mailbox only becomes inactive if the remove-mailbox cmd is run or in the case of a synced user, remove-remotemailbox. Unfortunately both commands remove the AD/AAD account and the user cannot be reinstated. The question is, what limitations does this apply on the mailbox if it has no license assigned, lit-hold enabled but is still an active mailbox i.e. not flagged inactive?
Some more details.
You have a mailbox with litigation hold enabled.
You remove the license from the mailbox. The mailbox now becomes a candidate to be an inactive mailbox once its account is removed from Office 365.
Because the account is now unlicensed, Office 365 gives the tenant a 30-day grace period to license it. During this time, the mailbox is active and can receive email.
When the 30-day period elapses, background processes kick in and will find the unlicensed mailbox. At this point, the mailbox is either permanently removed or moved to an inactive state, depending on if holds exist.
You can force the process along by explicitly removing mailboxes or accounts. The grace period exists to allow tenants to recover from admin errors.
Once the mailbox is inactive, it can be recovered or restored.
- But what if you need to keep the account in Office 365, (and in case of Hybrid, retain the AD account) so that the leaver can be restored if they return, which is common in most JML processes. Assuming lit-hold is enabled, If you do not remove the account, but remove the license, then after 30 days the mailbox is not flagged as inactive and remains in its current state.
robshin If the mailbox is inactive, it can be restored or recovered.
Re. Assuming lit-hold is enabled, If you do not remove the account, but remove the license, then after 30 days the mailbox is not flagged as inactive and remains in its current state.
Eventually EXO will detect the lack of license and move the mailbox to an inactive state to respect the hold. The 30 days period is not exact as the background processes run when service load permits. It might be 30 days; then again it might be longer.