Retention Policy vs. Litigation Hold vs. Archiving in Exchange Online

Retention policies and labels

Litigation holds

Archiving

Retention policy vs. litigation hold vs. archiving

Best practices for Exchange Online retention

• To implement effective data retention methods, first classify all organization data into three retention scenarios:

  a. Retain only: Items that have to preserved for legal compliance and should never be deleted.

  b. Retain and then delete: Items that must be retained for a specific period of time before deletion as they bring business value.

  c. Delete only: Items that need not be retained and must be destroyed.

• For an effective retention strategy, use a combination of Messaging Records Management (MRM) and Microsoft 365 retention policies. Microsoft recommends using MRM for your archiving needs and retention policies for your retention requirements. To learn more on how to create retention policies or move messages to the archive, click here.

• The default retention for mailbox items in the Recoverable Items folder is 14 days. However, you can choose to extend it up to 30 days. This feature is available only through PowerShell. Click here to know more.

• Use a third-party solution to backup your data: While the native settings offered by Microsoft are helpful in retaining your data, they do not serve as a backup solution. Microsoft is not responsible for backing up your data and they recommend using third-party apps for backup. To protect your Exchange Online data, use a combination of native Microsoft features and an efficient third-party backup solution such as SysCloud.

Reasons to backup Exchange Online with SysCloud:

• Limitations of native retention settings: The native retention settings offered by Microsoft do not serve as an effective data backup and recovery option. Having an independent backup of your data stored off-site is an effective bulwark against data loss incidents.

• Easy restoration: Third party tools such as SysCloud, help you easily restore specific or all emails in just a few clicks.

• Save license costs: Third-party solutions allow you to retain safe copies of organizational data even after employee exits and account deletions, thus saving license costs.

• With simple GUIs, no technical or coding expertise is required to backup and restore data.

• Fast backups: Take faster backup even for large teams.

• Protection against ransomware and phishing: Cloud security concerns have sky-rocketed in the pandemic. Tools like SysCloud secures data being backed up from ransomware and phishing.

Frequently asked questions

• What is the default retention of Office 365 Exchange Online and archive mailbox?

  If a mailbox item is deleted in Microsoft 365, it is retained in the deleted items folder for 30 days, after which it moves to the Recoverable Items folder. For a detailed illustration on what happens when data is deleted in Exchange Online, click here.

  Items in the archive mailbox if deleted, are lost forever.

• When you archive an email does it reduce the size of the mailbox?

  Archiving mails help reduce storage space of the primary mailbox. However, there are limits to the archive mailbox as well. Click here to know more.

• What happens to emails after retention policy?

  Once the retention period has expired, the mailbox items either get deleted, or moved to the archive, or triggers a disposition review for the administrator to review. The action taken depends on the option chosen at the time of retention policy creation.