Forum Discussion

Bronze Contributor

Mar 13, 2019

SharePoint Online: "List cannot be deleted while on hold or retention policy."

I am trying to help a client clean up some very old lists and sites. However, whenever I try to delete anything, I get the message above. I've checked for an eDiscovery site, for classification label...

Norman Young
Mar 13, 2019
We had the same issue and could not find any hold - retention policies in any place. We had to escalate to Microsoft support and they removed the hold on the back-end.

I hope this helps.

Norm

Kimberly Roetman

Iron Contributor

Are any of the list items on Compliance Hold?

Go to the list - switch to Classic Experience - select the list item - click the ... - select Advanced - Compliance Details. If the Hold Status is On Hold you can remove from hold from this dialog box.

OR a more simple approach:

- Delete the list items first

- Then delete the list object

Ahmad Petersen

Copper Contributor

Jun 06, 2019

Hi Kimberley,
Thank you. The delete the Items first and then delete the List object, worked for me.

BuzzBoy
Copper Contributor
May 20, 2021
Ahmad Petersen Thanks. Yes, go into the Sharepoint List. Delete all the item lines. Then you should be able to delete the whole list.