"outlook cannot delete one or more items because of a retention policy"

[SeanFrazer]

Many of our users are receiving the error message, "outlook cannot delete one or more items because of a retention policy", when attempting to delete an email message in Outlook.  We do have retention labels and retention policies, but they should not prevent deletion from the inbox; rather, they just save a copy of the deleted email message to a recoverable location.  This doesn't happen to every email, just a seemingly random subset.

Has anyone experienced this or know how to fix it?

[#2]

Hi @SeanFrazer,

This issue can be caused by a few different things, but the most common cause is a conflict between a retention policy and a retention label. To fix the issue, you can try the following:

1. Check the retention policy for the inbox folder. Make sure that the policy does not prevent deletion of emails.
2. Check the retention label for the email. Make sure that the label does not prevent deletion of emails.
3. Try deleting the email from Outlook Web App. If you are able to delete the email from Outlook Web App, then the issue is likely caused by a problem with your Outlook client.
4. Repair your Outlook installation. This can often fix problems with retention policies and retention labels.

Here are some links you can use:

• Fix Outlook cannot delete one or more items because of a retention policy error: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/message-store-full-but-cannot-delete-anyth...
• How to remove retention policy in Outlook: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-disable-retention-policy-office-365-stellardatarecovery
• Understanding retention policies and retention labels in Outlook: https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/office/assign-retention-labels-and-archive-policies-in-outlook-o...

Please click Mark as Best Response & Like if my post helped you to solve your issue.
This will help others to find the correct solution easily. It also closes the item.

If the post was useful in other ways, please consider giving it Like.

Kindest regards,

Leon Pavesic
(LinkedIn)