Email Archiving/Retention Policy Overview and Guide
Email Archiving Policy Overview
Email Archiving
Our Default email archiving policy will move emails older than 18 months to your archive mailbox. Your archive mailbox will replicate your mailbox folder structure, meaning the default folders and folders you have created will show up in your archive mailbox.
Email Retention and Exclusion Label Policy Overview
Default Email Retention Policy
Within the next couple of months, we are going to be implementing an email retention policy for 3 years. This means emails older than 3 years will automatically be deleted from your Email/Archive.
Emails in your junk folder will be deleted after 30 days.
Deleted Items will now be permanently deleted after 30 days.
Email Retention Exclusion Label
We know that some emails need to be kept for longer than 3 years, so we have implemented two Retention Exclusion Labels to help prevent permanent deletion of emails that need to be kept longer than 3 years. Below are the exclusion labels that have been published and how long emails will be kept.
- Email Retention Exclusion Label - 5 years
- Email Retention Exclusion Label - 7 years
These email retention labels must be applied to both folders you have created in your regular mailbox and your archive. Default folders like inbox cannot have these exclusion labels applied to them. So, if an email needs to be kept for longer than the default email retention period it will need to be moved from the inbox into a folder that can have these retention labels applied.
How to apply an email retention label policy to a folder
New Outlook/Outlook for the Web (OWA)
In your Outlook app, right-click on the folder you want to assign the retention label and select Assign policy. Then select the email retention exclusion label policy you want to apply to the folder.
Old Outlook
Select the folder in your Outlook app to which you want to assign the retention label. In your ribbon, in the Tags options select Assign Policy drop-down menu and select which exclusion label to assign the folder
You can also assign the retention label by right-clicking on the folder and selecting properties. Go to the Policy tab, click the drop-down menu and select the label, and click Apply.
