Prevent users from deleting emails that are tagged with retention label

Iron Contributor

Hello Team,

 

We've deployed retention labels for all exchange mailboxes from Microsoft Purview portal (Solutions --> Data lifecycle management --> Microsoft 365). 

 

Question: If the user(s) tag an email(s) with a retention label, is there a way to prevent them from deleting it manually when label applied? 

If they want to delete the email, retention label should be removed first and then delete it.

 

I see this feature is available for SharePoint and OneDrive and can be managed from Records Management Settings.

 

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks!

3 Replies
No, that's not how it works for Exchange mailboxes. Even if an item is tagged with a "retain" label, the user can still delete it. The deleted item then ends up in the RecoverableItems subtree, where the user cannot access it anymore, and is kept for the duration specified by the assigned label.
As you are more familiar with SPO - think of this as the analogue of the Preservation Hold Library.
If I delete the tagged item, it's moving to Deleted Items folder and not Recoverable Items space inside it
There are multiple levels of deletion in Exchange, Recoverable items is where the deleted items end up after being hard-deleted by the user.