Exchange Online and the New Archive folder

[Tony Redmond]

Exchange Online now boasts an “archive folder”, helpfully furnished to allow users to keep items they need to retain. Unless they have an archive mailbox. Or use Outlook auto-archive. It’s just a tad confusing.

https://www.petri.com/exchange-online-archive-options

[#2]

I actually love the Archive folder and functionality.

I use it to achieve my "zero inbox", items I need to do something with stay in the inbox, when I'm done, right click (or swipe) to archive, and a 6 month auto-archive rule set up on on the archive folder will automatically move it to the "online archive".

Simplified things across my different devices.

[#3]

I can see the sense of that...

[#4]

I don't think anyone is arguing about the usefulness of this feature (for some people at least). The way it was shoved down our throats however...

They were definitely not ready with the feature when the folder initially appeared in our mailboxes, and even if they were, I still dont think that forcing a default folder was the right approach. At least now the folder is actually recognized by other parts of Exchange and we can for example create retention tags for it, etc...