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.
By saying "put their account on hold before you remove the license", what operation we should do exactly? There's no such operation called "put ... on hold", right?
A mailbox is put on hold by applying a legal or in-place hold to the mailbox. You can do this with an Exchange hold or an Office 365 hold. Either works.
Thanks Tony! May I confirm if this feature applies to O365 E1? Or it requires higher level E3/5?
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.
- Good to know that. Guess that's why I can't find a place to "hold" a mailbox in my E1 subscription. Thanks Tony.
I have found litigation in-place hold option (either via EAC or in Office 365 admin center > Mail settings). So, if i apply such hold and remove a license it still should be there? Actually in my case we only need for the automatic reply to work for 2 weeks after leave. Wonder if it will work during such hold and if license is removed.
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?
