How Long Does Office 365 Keep Deleted Emails? Detailed Explanation

Office 365 has a default setting to hold deleted emails for about 30 days in the “Deleted Items” folder, which allows you to recover accidentally deleted data quickly. So, when you delete an email, it doesn't vanish right away. However, after those 30 days, though, the email isn't completely gone, because it moves to another place i.e. 'Recoverable Items' folder, where it stays for more days.

But eventually, it does get permanently deleted. Sounds complicated! Don’t worry, at the end of our discussion, you will have understood this concept well i.e. how long does Office 365 keep deleted emails?

Understanding the Basics of Retention Policies

Understanding the basics of email retention policies in Office 365 is crucial for keeping your emails secure from permanent deletion. With the O365 deleted items retention policy, users can decide how long emails are available in their Office 365 account. For example, you might set a policy to keep emails for a certain amount of time before deleting them or moving them to an archive. Microsoft 365 allows you to customize the policies according to your needs like what happens with data after the retention period & apply different rules to different groups of users.

How Long Does Office 365 Keep Deleted Emails with Types of Retention Policies?

Here are the different types of retention policies that safeguard our accidentally deleted data from permanent loss:

• Default Retention Policy: This is a default policy provided by Microsoft to move the accidentally deleted data for 30 days in the “Deleted Item” folder before permanent deletion. Keep in mind this works only when if a custom retention policy is not applied.
• Custom Retention Policy: With this, retention policy a user can make a customized policy in which they can add content, age of the email, compliance requirements, etc. Plus, one can select a specific time for recovering or archiving the deleted data. This policy is preferred over default retention.
• Organization-wide Policy: Ensures consistent retention settings across the organization.
• User-specific Policy: Retention tailored to individual users, groups, or departments.
• After Retention Policy Expiry: Emails may face permanent deletion, archiving, or extended retention, aligning with policy parameters.

Read More: How to Recover Deleted Emails in Outlook 365?

How to Manage Retention Policies?

Managing retention policies in Office 365 is quite simple, you just have to go through the guidelines mentioned below & apply them wisely. Remember, when your retention policy expires then your email data is lost permanently. So, it is recommended to re-apply the policies before they expire.

#How to create a retention policy?

• Provide the proper Administrator credentials for signing in to the Compliance Center.
• Navigate to the "Information governance" option > "Retention” > “Create" to add the new policy to your emails. Choose any of the options like name the policy, add a description, set retention duration & specify retention actions (e.g., delete or move to archive).
• Now, apply the retention policy to your desired mailboxes & users, and save it.

#How to modify a retention policy?

• Within the compliance center, click on the “Retention” option.
• Afterward, choose the retention you want to format.
• Now, start modifying the retention policy according to your needs & save it.

#How to assign retention policy?

• Look for the Retention option in the compliance center.
• Select the policy you want to assign.
• Apply the policy to your desired mailboxes or users & save those policies.

#Why monitor the applied retention policy?

• It is essential to review the applied policies regularly to ensure every policy is working correctly or not.
• Guarantee that all the emails are restored as per their retention policy selected time.
• If any compliance issues arise, investigate and take appropriate actions to rectify them.

With these instructions, one can effortlessly create, modify & manage retention policies. But, it is recommended to clean the Deleted Items mailbox, to ensure newly deleted data is available in it. For the same, you can automatically empty the deleted folder by following these steps: Open Outlook Web Apps > Setting icon > Options > Mail > Message > Empty the Deleted Item Folder When I sign out.

What Happens When the Retention Policy Expires?

After the completion of the retention policy, you lose your data permanently. On top of that, there is no native solution provided by Microsoft to retrieve the emails. However, one trick can help to avoid this hassle i.e. you just have to backup your Office 365 data regularly, to ensure content continuity even if it is lost.

Fortunately, one reliable & quick solution can do this for you i.e. Office 365 Exporter. This utility is an automated tool that can save your M365 data in your local drive automatically, which means even a naive user can operate it. It can backup the data in various formats including PST, EML, MSG, PDF & MBOX to access the information on any device.

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Final Say!

Accidental data deletion or data loss in Office 365 is a major problem right now for users as well as organizations. We can retrieve our lost data because of the retention policy, but it does not provide a guarantee for data protection. However, the retention policy may vary for each cloud application.

So, it is difficult to know how long does Office 365 keep deleted emails? To avoid such problems, you can create a backup of your data with the help of the automated solution mentioned above. It helps to maintain the backup files and get back the data after the completion of the Retention period.