Outlook 365: deleting and recovering mail items

This document summarises the retention policies on your University Mailbox items - emails,
calendar items, contacts etc - and explains how items are deleted and recovered, and
summarises the timescales.

Note that retention and recovery timescales for files on your H: drive or shared network
drives are different.
See guidance at www.abdn.ac.uk/staffnet/working-here/it-datastorage

Deleting

• When you delete an item, it goes into your Deleted Items folder. This is called a Soft
deletion.

• After 30 days, a retention policy on the Deleted Items folder means that your item is
automatically moved from your Deleted Items folder to the Deletions folder. This is called
a Permanent Deletion. This also happens if you actively choose to empty your Deleted
Items folder.

• After a further 14 days, your item is moved from the Deletions folder to the Purges
folder.

• After another 14 days, items in the Purges folder are discarded and are no longer
available.

Recovering

• While an item is in your Deleted Items folder, you can still view it and move it back into
another folder.

• While an item is in the Deletions folder, you can use the Recover Deleted Items option
to retrieve it. Retrieving it moves it back to Deleted Items.

• While an item is in the Purges folder, you can request, via the Service Desk, that it is
recovered.

• Once the Purges folder is emptied, items are gone completely and cannot be recovered.

Outlook Policies

Your Deleted Items folder and Junk Mail folder have a 30 day retention policy applied to
them. This means that after 30 days, an item is automatically moved to the Deletions folder.

All your other Outlook folders have a default Never Expire policy applied, meaning that items
are never deleted unless you actively delete them.

You can apply your own policies to folders:

Outlook

1. Right-click on a folder and select Properties…

2. Click the Policy tab and select a Folder Policy from the drop-down menu
3. Click Apply and OK

IT Services, University of Aberdeen

Page 2 Outlook 365: deleting and recovering mail items

OWA

1. Right-click on a folder and select assign policy

2. Select a Retention Policy from the pop-up menu

The diagram below shows the typical flow of mail through this structure.

1. Mail item arrives in the Inbox; from

here, it may be moved to an other
mailbox folder. Inbox

Other mailbox
folder

2. If a mail item is soft deleted, it moves Deleted Items

to the Deleted Items folder

30 Days (from soft deletion) If any Retention Policy applied to item

3. At some point after 30 days from the

soft deletion it is permanently deleted Deletions
i.e. moved to the Deletions folder.

14 Days (from ‘deletion’)

4. At some point after 14 days from being

permanently deleted it is purged and
moved to the Purges folder. Purges

14 Days (from ‘purging’)

5. At some point 14 days from being
purged it is gone and cannot be
recovered.

6. If an item is given an explicit retention Gone!

policy it will be permanently deleted
(i.e. moved to the “Deletions” folder”
when its retention period expires.
(Dotted line)

When you leave the University

Your Office 365 mailbox – with all your email, calendars and contacts is deleted entirely 90
days after you leave the University. It is NOT retained in any archive.

Help and advice

If you have any questions related to deleting, recovering, or archiving items, please contact
the Service Desk – servicedesk@abdn.ac.uk, or online at https://myit.abdn.ac.uk.

IT Services, University of Aberdeen