Oh no! A user has come to you and has complained they are running out of storage space in their Outlook. What? You exclaim… you are on Exchange Plan 2 and have 100 GB of storage space. How is that possible? This is an opportunity to Archive Users Mail.
I have been in this game long enough to tell you that users have been using email storage space as file storage space for decades. It really makes file server administrators happy, but it pisses off the email server admins. Hey, aren’t we supposed to be on the same team?
Since there isn’t an Exchange Online Plan 3 (LOL) you are tapped out at 100 GB. What to do…what to do…
Well luckily you can take advantage of the Exchanged Managed Folder Assistant (MFA). This is not to be confused with Multi Factor Authentication. We IT types love our acronyms (sic). It is a simple process, but you do have to get a few things set up. Lucky I am here to show you.
Configure Your MRM Retention Policy to Archive Users Mail
- Sign in to the Microsoft Purview portal: Access the portal at https://compliance.microsoft.com/ and sign in with your administrator credentials.
- Navigate to MRM Retention policies: Go to Data lifecycle management > Exchange (legacy) > MRM Retention policies.
- Create a new policy: Click + New policy.
- Name the policy: Give your new policy a descriptive name, such as “Company Archive and Delete Policy”.
- Add retention tags: Click + Add tag.
- Select tags: Choose the relevant retention tags from the list, including custom tags you’ve previously created.
- Review and submit: Review your policy settings and click Next to submit and apply the new policy.
I set the policy to Archive Users Mail older than 3 years and to delete any emails after 7. Seven years is a standard policy and if your are holding on to emails older that 7 years, well that’s on you.
Enable Online Archive for the User
Online Archiving is not enabled by default for users. It takes a lot of time and processing for this so only users that require it should be enabled. It is the best way to Archive Users Mail. But we do it only when a user requests it. All we must do is go to their mailbox in EAC and enable archiving with the policy we configured above. This setting is located in the “other” tab of the users mailbox properties. It is done like this:
Notice the Name is Blank. Leave it so. It just populates it as “<Last Name>, <First Name> – Online Archive” after you enable and save configuration.
Apply Policy for the User
In order for Online Archiving to work properly you need to create a retention policy for your tenant. After yo do that, just apply it to the user after you have created an Archive for them. This setting is located in the “mailbox” tab of the users mailbox properties. It is done like this: :
Wait or Force Synchronization
Now you can wait for the synchronization to occur to Archive the Users Mail in Outlook. It will eventually mount as an archive mail store just like local archiving but it is online. So, it will be available to any outlook you run with you logged in. This is a definite benefit to local auto-archive.
However, it could take a few hours to a few days and in some cases a few weeks to finish the initial synch. This is dependent on several factors. Like, size of mailbox, network traffic, speed, a how fast or slow the M365 cloud is operating at any given moment. There is an easy way to kick it off. Here’s how you do it:
Login into Exchange Online in PowerShell, then execute this command:
start-managedfolderassistant -identity mailboxname
Where mailbox name is the user who you set up the Managed Folder Assistant for. Before you know it you will see the Online Archive start to populate in the users Outlook! Also, if you subscribe to an M365 backup solution, it will get backed up to the cloud with the original mail store of the user. One last thing to note is the online archive can grow to a size of 1.5 TB. If they need more than that…..I GIVE UP!
Dan
I am an IT professional with over twenty five years experience in the field. I have supported thousands of users over the years. The organizations I have worked for range in size from one person to hundreds of people. I have performed support from Help Desk, Network / Cloud Administration, Network Support, Application Support, Implementation and Security.