Retention Policies in Exchange Online

Applies to: Office 365 for professionals and small businesses, Office 365 for enterprises, Live@edu

Topic Last Modified: 2011-12-02

For business, legal, or regulatory reasons, you may have to retain e-mail messages sent to and from users in your
organization, or you may want to remove e-mail that you aren't required to retain. Messaging records
management (MRM), the records management technology in Exchange Online, enables you to control how long
to keep items in users' mailboxes and define what action to take on items that have reached a certain age.

How MRM works in Exchange Online

Retention settings in Exchange Online
Use the Exchange Control Panel to manage retention policies
Next steps

How MRM works in Exchange Online

Retention policies and retention tags are part of the MRM technology. Retention policies use retention tags to
apply retention settings to e-mail messages and folders. Retention tags define an age limit that specifies how
long items are retained, and a retention action that specifies what happens to items that reach the retention
age limit. Retention tags are linked to a retention policy, which is then applied to a mailbox.
Let's look closer at these components:

Retention tagsRetention tags define and apply retention settings to messages and folders in a user's
mailbox. Retention tags specify how long a message is kept and the action taken when the message
reaches the specified retention age. When a message reaches its retention age, it's moved to the user's
archive mailbox or it's deleted. Retention tags are linked to a retention policy. There are three types of
retention tags:
Default policy tag (DPT)The settings defined in the DPT apply to all items in a mailbox that
don't have a retention tag already applied. A retention policy can have up to three DPTs linked
to it: one DPT with a retention action of Move to Archive, one DTP with a retention action of
Delete and Allow Recovery, and one DTP for a specific message class, such as voice mail.
Retention policy tags (RPT)RPTs are applied to default folders, such as Inbox, Sent Items,
Deleted Items, and Junk Mail. An RPT takes precedence over a DPT.
NoteRPTs dont support a retention action that moves items to the users archive mailbox. The
only retention action for RPTs is to delete items.
Personal tagsUsers can use Microsoft Outlook 2010 and Outlook Web App to apply personal
tags to custom folders and individual items in their mailbox.
Retention policiesA retention policy is a group of retention tags that are applied to a mailbox. When
a mailbox is created, a default retention policy is applied. In Exchange Online, the default retention
 policy applied to new mailboxes is named Default MRM Policy. A mailbox can have only one retention
policy applied to it.
NoteIn Live@edu organizations, there are two default retention policies: MRMPolicy-
DefaultMailboxPlan and MRMPolicy-GalDisabledMailboxPlan.
Retention tags are linked to a retention policyA retention policy can have two DPTs, each with a
different retention action; one RPT for each default folder; and any number of personal tags.

How are retention settings processed?

The Managed Folder Assistant is a process that runs automatically in the Microsoft datacenters to process
the retention settings that are applied to a mailbox. The Managed Folder Assistant applies the DPT and
RPTs to the mailbox and makes personal tags available in Outlook 2010 and Outlook Web App so that users
can apply them to custom folders or specific mailbox items. The Managed Folder Assistant processes the
retention of items based on the tag type, retention age, and retention actions defined in each retention tag.

How often does the Managed Folder Assistant run? The Managed Folder Assistant is configured to process
all mailboxes in a cloud-based organization in a specific span of time, which is known as a work cycle. In
Exchange Online, the work cycle is seven days. This means that the assistant tries to process every mailbox
in your cloud-based organization once every seven days.

Because the Managed Folder Assistant is running all the time, you dont need to do anything to apply
retention settings to mailboxes. However, if you need to apply retention settings to a mailbox immediately,
you can force the Managed Folder Assistant to process a specific mailbox. See Run the Managed Folder
Assistant.

ImportantMRM doesnt guarantee retention of every message. For example, a user can delete or remove
a message from their mailbox before the message reaches its retention age; MRM isn't designed to prevent
users from deleting their own messages. If your organization requires retention of messages indefinitely,
consider using one of these Exchange Online features:

JournalingIf your organization requires messages to be retained outside a user's mailbox for long-
term storage, use journaling. See Journal Rules.
Litigation holdIf your organization has to preserve messages to meet e-discovery and retention
requirements, you can put user mailboxes on litigation hold. See Put a Mailbox on Litigation Hold.

Also, single item recovery in Exchange Online lets you to recover a deleted e-mail message for up to
14days after the message is permanently deleted by the user. See Recover Deleted E-Mail Messages in
Exchange Online.

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Retention settings in Exchange Online

The following table shows the retention tags and their settings, which are available by default in Exchange
Online for Microsoft Office 365 and Live@edu. All these tags are linked to the default retention policy that is
applied to new mailboxes. That means these settings are applied to all new mailboxes.

When a personal retention tag is linked to the retention policy applied to a user's mailbox, the retention tag is
automatically available to users to apply to their mailbox items.
 Tag name Tag type Retention age limit Retention action
(days)

Default 2 year move to archive All (DPT)* 730 Move to Archive

Recoverable Items 14 days move Recoverable 14 Move to Archive

to archive Items**

Deleted Items Deleted Items 30 Delete and Allow

folder** Recovery

Junk Email JunkEmail** 30 Delete and Allow

Recovery

Personal 1 year move to archive Personal 365 Move to Archive

Personal 5 year move to archive Personal 1825 Move to Archive

Personal never move to Personal No age limit Move to Archive

archive***

1 Week Delete Personal 7 Delete and Allow

Recovery

1 Month Delete Personal 30 Delete and Allow

Recovery

6 Month Delete Personal 180 Delete and Allow

Recovery

1 Year Delete Personal 365 Delete and Allow

Recovery

5 Year Delete Personal 1825 Delete and Allow

Recovery

Never Delete*** Personal No age limit Delete and Allow

Recovery

*Retention tags with a type of All are DPTs. DPTs apply to items that don't have another retention tag
applied.

**The type for RPTs identifies the default mail folder that the tag applies to.

***This tag isn't enabled by default. Items that have this retention tag are either never moved or never
deleted.

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Use the Exchange Control Panel to manage retention policies
As explained earlier, the settings from the default retention tags are automatically applied to every mailbox
because a default retention policy is applied when mailboxes are created. However, if you want to change the
retention behavior for your organization, you can use the Exchange Control Panel to manage retention
policies and retention tags in Exchange Online. See the following topics for more information about how to
manage retention policies.

Create a New Retention Policy in Exchange Online

Change the Retention Policy Applied to a Mailbox
Edit a Retention Policy

For information about how to manage retention tags, see Retention Tags in Exchange Online.

Next steps
Put a mailbox on retention holdA retention hold suspends the retention policy applied to a mailbox.
The result is that the Managed Folder Assistant doesn't process the retention settings or take retention
actions. See Put a Mailbox on Retention Hold.
Use Windows PowerShell to manage retention policiesFor more information, see Set Up and
Manage Retention Policies in Exchange Online with Windows PowerShell.

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