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My organisation would like to remove all user's access to emails in their mailbox after 3 years. However, we would like to still be able to access them as admins for up to 7 years.

I have looked at retention policies but if I use a policy to delete the items then the items will be permanently deleted from the admin centre too so there is no point.

Maybe I am really missing the mark with this one, but I cannot seem to find any advice for this anywhere.

Edit: I should also add that we have email archiving enabled. From what I have found, enforcing a litigation hold will stop archiving and overrule any retention policies.

Any advice on how to do this or just letting me know if it is possible would be much appreciated.

Rhys
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1 Answers1

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Hi,

Your organization wants to remove the messages from user’s mailbox, and user can’t view these messages but administrator can, right?

I have looked at retention policies but if I use a policy to delete the items then the items will be permanently deleted from the admin center too so there is no point.

If we put a hold (either In-Place Hold or Litigation Hold) on a mailbox or individual items, after the items are permanently deleted by retention policy, they will enter into an invisible folder and be retained until the expiration date. See the following snapshot: enter image description here

To satisfy your requirement, you can set Retention Policy to the mailbox for 3 years (Permanently Deleted) and use In-Place Hold or Litigation Hold to retain these messages for 4 years (or later).

1.Retention Policy:enter image description hereenter image description here

2.In-Place Hold:enter image description here

You can search the mailboxes by some filters(keywords, start time, end time, From, To/Cc/Bcc).enter image description here

Finally, please choose In-Place Hold and its Retention Period.

3.Litigation Hold:

Select your mailbox and click the "Edit" button. enter image description here

Then enable the Litigation Hold feature and set its hold period for 1460 days(4 years) or later. enter image description here

More details about how to configure In-Place Hold or Litigation Hold: In-Place Hold & Litigation Hold

Tips: It may take almost an hour to make the hold take effect from server side, just be patient.

If administrator want to view these messages, he/she can use some filters of eDiscovery (keywords, start date, end date, from ,To,/Cc/Bcc) to search them. enter image description here

Finally, you can view these messages by clicking the button: enter image description here

Best regards,

Ivan Wang

Ivan_Wang
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  • Thank you very much for the suggestion.I also looked into this, I did hear that the litigation hold will overrule the retention policy, causing it to not delete or archive any email. What do you know about this? – Rhys Oct 08 '19 at 13:14