Important Announcement: Deprecation of AdminAuditLog and MailboxAuditLog Cmdlets

[UPDATE 4/18: We are writing to inform you that the AdminAuditLog & MailboxAuditLog changes that was scheduled for April 30th has been postponed until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and we appreciate your patience and understanding]

[ Update 6/26]

Further details related to Admin Audit log Cmdlets Found here :

 https://aka.ms/AdminAuditCmdletBlog 

Dear customers, 

We are writing to inform you about an upcoming change that will affect the way you access and manage your Exchange Online audit logs. Starting from April 30, 2024, we will be deprecating the following four cmdlets in the Exchange Online V3 module: 

• Search-AdminAuditLog 
• Search-MailboxAuditLog 
• New-AdminAuditLogSearch 
• New-MailboxAuditLogSearch 

These cmdlets will no longer be available for use after this date, and you will need to switch to a Search-UnifiedAuditLog cmdlet or Microsoft Purview portal to access your audit logs. 

Why are we deprecating these cmdlets? 

We are working towards streamlining the audit log search experience of our customers by deprecating four older cmdlets in favor of a single, more powerful cmdlet: Search-UnifiedAuditLog. This cmdlet has been in use for a long time and offers several advantages, including: 

• Support for a wider variety of record types. 
• More filtering options to refine your search. 
• A range of output formats to suit your needs. 

To make things simpler and more efficient, it’s recommended to use Search-UnifiedAuditLog from now on. You can learn more about this cmdlet and its usage here: Search-UnifiedAuditLog (ExchangePowerShell) | Microsoft Learn 

What do you need to do if you are using the deprecated cmdlets? 

If you are currently using any or all the above-mentioned cmdlets, you will need to take the following actions before April 30, 2024: 

For Search-AdminAuditLog, you will need to replace it with Search-UnifiedAuditLog in your scripts or commands. To get the same results as Search-AdminAuditLog, you will need to set the RecordType parameter to ExchangeAdmin. For example, if you want to search for all Exchange admin actions in the last 30 days, you can use the following command: 

Search-UnifiedAuditLog -RecordType ExchangeAdmin -StartDate (Get-Date).AddDays(-30) -EndDate (Get-Date) 

For Search-MailboxAuditLog, you may also replace it with Search-UnifiedAuditLog. You can use the Exchange Online PowerShell V2 module to query the unified audit log for Exchange-related events. The cmdlet allows you to filter the results by record type, date range, user, and operation. For example, if you want to search for all Exchange mailbox actions in the last 30 days, you can use the following command:  
Search-UnifiedAuditLog -RecordType ExchangeItem -StartDate (Get-Date).AddDays(-30) -EndDate (Get-Date) 

You can also export the results to a CSV file for further analysis. To use the cmdlet, you need to have the View-Only Audit Logs or Audit Logs role assigned. You can learn more about the cmdlet here: Search-UnifiedAuditLog.  

For New-MailboxAuditLogSearch and New-AdminAuditLogSearch you will need to use the Microsoft Purview portal to download your audit log report. The portal allows you to specify the criteria for your audit log search, such as date range, record type, user, and action. You can also choose to receive the report by email or download it directly from the portal. You can access the portal here: Microsoft Purview 

We are also working on a new Audit Search API using Microsoft Graph which is expected to become available in Public Preview by February 2024. This will allow our customers to programmatically access the new async Audit Search experience, which also provides improved reliability and search completeness. 

Note on default enablement of Auditing based on SKU:

To use the Search-UnifiedAuditLog command, auditing needs to be enabled for your tenant. Auditing is by default only enabled for the following SKUs: 

• A1/A3/A5/Edu 
• O365E1/E3/E5 
• Defender 

If you are using any different SKU, you will need to enable the Auditing manually by following the steps as mentioned here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/audit-log-enable-disable. Please note To ensure you have access to the last 90 days of logs once the cmdlets are deprecated, it’s crucial to enable auditing before January 31st. If you enable auditing after this date, you’ll only have access to logs from the day you activate it and onwards.     

We are here to help 

We understand that this change may cause some inconvenience or disruption to your workflows, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We are committed to providing you with the best tools and services to manage your Exchange Online environment, and we appreciate your understanding and cooperation. 

If you have any questions or feedback about this change, please feel free to contact us through our support channels or post a comment on this blog post. We are always happy to hear from you and assist you in any way we can. 

Sincerely, 

The Exchange Online Team