Exchange online archive file management help

Hi Dan,
Thanks again. Just to let you know. After much digging and learning Microsoft's different terms for same old action and processes I was able to get the archive moving files. Thanks.

Hi Dan,
Thanks again for all the help. Managed to get thing set up. See the on-line Archive in their accounts and started moving things. Slow process. Did I not read or see something where I can setup automatic maintenance that will move the mail into the on-line Archive for the users? I have looked around in Admin but don't see where I can manage this so I wondered if there was a way.
Thanks, Have a great weekend.
Mark

Hi Dan,
I have managed to get the licenses and I am using my own account to experiment on. After playing around I got my OnLine Archive - mark@..... to show up. On my workstation client. So I only guessing but I open lets say SENT folder. Scroll to the bottom and click on "click here to view more on Microsoft Exchange" This allows me to get to the message on the server correct? Correct me if I am wrong. Here is what I tried to do. We started the subscription summer 2017. I can drag one at a time to move them. If I tagged ( Click first <shift> click last ) to move all sent in 2017. I get and hour glass and not responding, when I tried to move them to the Online archive folder in a bunch. Is there a limit of how many files you can move in a group? Small groups of email move slowly but do, large ones appear to stall and kick out.
Thanks for your help. Plowing forward in to the night.
Mark

You will see the online archive automatically in Outlook once it's enabled (see the screenshot in my original reply for what it looks like). The above link has more details on enabling it for users. Outlook syncs any changes made to the local cache back to the cloud mailbox....you can't make a change to local cache and not to the cloud mailbox, that's not how a cache works. You need policies in place to automatically move items to the online archive, but users can also drag and drop items from the primary mailbox to the online archive

HI Dan,
I do appreciate it very much. I have confidence them to go with the Bus. Prem. upgrade. They were asking me how they would access the storage archive and how could they tell if they were actually moving files from the server not the cache. Were to look to see if they are opening up the mailbox.
If you know a link to a doc we can use as reference that would be a great help.
Let you know how we do.
Mark

All good...happy to help. It might be easier to use OWA rather than the Outlook client when cleaning up. This connects directly to the mailbox. As I said before, the Outlook client works on a cached copy of the cloud based mailbox (hence the "view more on Microsoft Exchange" when you reach the limit of mail cached locally). My recommendation is to enable the Microsoft online archive natively in EXO. Business basic and Standard provides 50Gb of additional archive mailbox storage, while Business Premium provides 1.5Tb (see this link for details https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/exchange-online-service-description/exchange-online-limits#storage-limits). Details on how to enable the online archive for a user are here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/enable-archive-mailboxes#how-to-enable-an-archive-mailbox
Once it's enabled, users can move items from their primary mailbox to an archive mailbox.

HI Dan,
Thank you again for taking the time to help me understand how their mail system works. It is a bit misleading when you look at the tool. Think you are doing one thing and it really is not having much effect. To alleviate some of the issue sending/receiving mail I Exported Different folders to pst then deleted mail in those folders. Helped a little but not for long. Security is not much of an issue being mostly family members working there.
This is a 7 year accumulation on these accounts. And I'm guessing %85 have PDF and photo attachments, times more than a 100 pages so they can eat up some space. I have looked into adding to 100G. requires them to move up to an E3 license about double a seat from what they are paying now. So we were seeing if arching the online file then cleaning it up was an option. This is were the Tool was giving me the impression this could be done.
Now with your explanation it sounds like it is not possible. You mention there are 3rd party companies that can create retrievable archives of these accounts?
I was playing with my account, don't want to experiment on their accounts but my account in their company has the same issue so it good to work on. When I look at the different folders lest say SENT. I see mail back about 6 month then at the bottom you can click "view more on Microsoft Exchange". Is this where the excess must be removed? I tried a small amount to delete, seemed to remove them. When I tag a large amount down to the bottom of the list it produces an error stating not enough resources or memory close programs and try again. Errors every time. Can you confirm this is where the files need to be deleted?
I can tell you how much I appreciate to taking the time to explain this to me. Been working on computers since the days of DOS and the 5.25" floppy boot disk. Hottest machine on the horizon was a 286 processor and if you sprang for the big bucks you could get a 10MB hard disk (yes 10 megabyte). In all my time I never had to work with office outlook. Word, Excel, occasionally Power point but never Outlook. This company switch to it because another program they switch to required it. Before that they were on my web hosting and mail server. Piece of cake to manage and I did not have to learn a foreign language to work with it. LOL
I am going to discuss the license upgrade again but I'll need to know how to clean them up if they still decline. You have been a wealth of knowledge. Thank you again.