Forum Discussion
Prevent messages from being deleted in Outlook
- There is no functionality within the M365 suite that allows you to block users from deleting messages in their own mailbox. The reason is simple - users "own" their mailbox and can do with any item within as they please. If you as the administrator need to ensure compliance needs are met, holds or (new-style) retention policies are the way to go. However they do not prevent the user from deleting messages from their Inbox, they work by preserving a copy of the deleted item instead, which you can then recover via eDidscovery.
P.S. the old-style (legacy) retention policies do not ensure item preservation.
Thanks for your feedback.
This settings seem ok on a user-basis configuration. I need to do this at scale for multiple users at once. This is why I'm looking at retention policies.
Also I don't think this setup prevent emails from being deleted manually, right?
Thanks again for your help.
Regards,
Dom
Hi DomAnnicette,
thanks for the update.
For implementing those settings for multiple (or all users) you can use Retention policy in Microsoft Compliance (Purview) portal (https://compliance.microsoft.com).
There you can choose Data lifecycle management --> Exchange (legacy), and there should be a default MRM Policy.
Here you can alter the values to your needs. You can also create a new policy and set the delete value to never.
Here are some valueable references on this topic.
Create a Retention Policy in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn
Creating a 'never delete' data retention policy in Microsoft 365 - Microsoft Community Hub
Automatically retain or delete content by using retention policies | Microsoft Learn
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Leon Pavesic