Office 365 Archive

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Office 365 Archive

Handian Sudianto 6,101

Hello,

I use outlook 365 as email client and now i want to know how i can archive old email and store the archive item into pst format? I can't find option to make archive in this version outlook

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Answer 1

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,376 Moderator

Hi @Handian Sudianto ，

Normally, the option to manually archive mails in Outlook client can be found via File > Info > Tools > Clean up old items:

Clean up old items

If this option is not available, it's likely that there's an Exchange account in your Outlook profile that has online archive enabled or there's a mail retention policy that overrides the archive feature in Outlook client.
More details about the possibilities of why this option is not visible, you can refer to the Note sections in this article.

In case you cannot see the option, but you do want to manually move mails to a PST file, you can follow the steps below as a workaround:

Switch to Exchange Online mode or adjust the cached data period to All so that all items can show up in Outlook.
Create a new Outlook data file(PST) via Home > New Items > More Items > Outlook Data File...
Follow the wizard to specify the file name and the location where the PST file would be stored. Then you'll see the file on the left pane in Outlook. Create a new folder inside it to store old items you want to manually archive:
Select the Inbox of the mailbox, create a new rule via Home > Rules > Manage Rules & Alerts using conditions and actions similar like below, tick the checkbox of Run this rule now on messages already in "Inbox" and then mails before the date specified in the rule condition would start moving to the target folder in the PST file.

Hope the above can be of some help.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Handian Sudianto 6,101 Reputation points

2024-01-05T08:12:27.6066667+00:00

Ji @Yuki Sun-MSFT

yes there are no option 'clean up old file' in my outlook.

If we use rule i believe we cannot keep same folder structure and the result all emails will stored on same folder and this will make messy.
Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,376 Reputation points Moderator

2024-01-05T08:20:59.7966667+00:00

Hi @Handian Sudianto ，

Yes, it's the inevitable limitation if you intend to archive multiple folders or the entire mailbox.

Is Online Archive already enabled for the mailbox? If so, I don't think it's necessary to manually archive old mails to a local PST file. You can change the retention policy of the folder to automatically move old mails to Online Archive:
Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,376 Reputation points Moderator

2024-01-05T08:26:41.79+00:00

Hi @Handian Sudianto ，

You might be able to get a PST file with similar folder structure by "Export", but unlike "archive", these old items still remain in the mailbox so extra effort is required to permanently remove them from the mailbox.
Handian Sudianto 6,101 Reputation points

2024-01-07T23:44:31.2866667+00:00

Hi @Yuki Sun-MSFT

Here my policy.
Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,376 Reputation points Moderator

2024-01-08T07:49:28.26+00:00

Hi @Handian Sudianto ，

The screenshot you shared indicated that Online Archive is already enabled for your mailbox. This explains why you cannot see the archive option in Outlook.

As mentioned above, you can select any one of the available personal retention tags to archive old mails to the Online archive mailbox. For more details, hopefully you can find the link below helpful:
Manage email storage with online archive mailboxes.
Handian Sudianto 6,101 Reputation points

2024-01-08T07:51:55.0833333+00:00

Hi @Yuki Sun-MSFT

If we disable online archive, can archive in the outlook back?
Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,376 Reputation points Moderator

2024-01-08T08:30:18.12+00:00

Hi @Handian Sudianto ，

If we disable online archive, can archive in the outlook back?

Theoretically, yes.

But personally, I'd prefer not doing this way. On the one hand, online archive has many benefits over the locally archive to PST, such as it doesn't require any additional local storage and can be accessed from any device. One the other hand, disabling the online archive is sometimes not that especially when there are multiple retention policy or hold enabled on the mailbox. And you'll plan to export data inside the archive mailbox if you don't want to reconnect it later.

Taken in the round, I would recommend stick using the Online Archive feature if possible.
Handian Sudianto 6,101 Reputation points

2024-01-08T09:41:59.7266667+00:00

hi @Yuki Sun-MSFT If i enable online archive for one year from now (Jan 8, 2024), and the exchange will archive my email from Jan 8 2023 to Jan 8 2024, will the online archive running daily after Jan 8 2024? Or if the archive progress is done, should i change back to 'Use Parent Folder Policy'?
Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,376 Reputation points Moderator

2024-01-08T09:54:21.54+00:00

Hi @Handian Sudianto ，

If you select the 1 Year as image below, it means mails older than 1 year would be moved to online archive. In other words, only mails received after Jan 8 2023 would be kept in the Inbox in your primary mailbox while the older ones would be moved to Online Archive automatically when being processed by the Managed Folder Assistant.

The Managed Folder Assistant automatically processes periodically, moving items older than 1 year into Online Archive, so you don't need to change it back.

For more details about how retention age is calculated, you can read the article below: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/security-and-compliance/messaging-records-management/retention-tags-and-policies#retention-tags.
Handian Sudianto 6,101 Reputation points

2024-01-08T10:02:49.83+00:00

so the online archive will be activate again on Jan 8 2025?
Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,376 Reputation points Moderator

2024-01-09T01:55:46.6266667+00:00

Hi @Handian Sudianto ，

so the online archive will be activate again on Jan 8 2025?

No, it's activated all the time.

The personal retention tag 1-year archive mentioned above means items would remain in this folder for one year and then be moved to the online archive mailbox.

A throttle-based mailbox assistant called Managed Folder Assistant keeps running backend. It inspects items in the mailbox and determines whether they're subject to retention, then "stamps items subject to retention with the appropriate retention tags and takes the specified retention action on items past their retention age“.

For more details about how retention tags work, you can go through the aforementioned document:

Retention tags and retention policies in Exchange Online

By the way, in this thread, we are mainly discussing about why the archive to PST option is missing in the Outlook client as indicated by the original post, and we've already found out it's because Online Archive is enabled for the primary mailbox. If you found any of the replies here helpful, could you click the "Accept Answer" button so that it can be more easily referenced by other users? Then if you still need further help regarding your new questions about the working process of Online Archive mailbox or Retention policy/retention tags, it would be best if you try to open up a new thread for it. In this way, it will make answer searching in the forum easier and be beneficial to other community members as well. Thanks for your understanding!
Handian Sudianto 6,101 Reputation points

2024-01-09T01:58:22.2933333+00:00

Hi @Yuki Sun-MSFT

Noted, will create a new thread.

Answer 2

Vasil Michev 119.7K MVP Volunteer Moderator

Auto-archive is not supported with cloud mailboxes, as the preferred solution therein is to use the Online archive. To export older messages to PST, use the File > Open & Export > Import/Export wizard. Select the Export to a file option > Outlook data file > then select what to export.

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