Unable to empty deleted items folder in outlook 365 web

Question

Need some help, Have a user that is not able to empty deleted items folder in Outlook 365 Web. When you right-click and select empty all content it shows 3675 items and ask if you are sure to empty, select yes. It looks to be deleted but after a short time, they are all still present. None of the items are deleted or even moved to the Recover items folder.

Answer 1

Hi @Brian W,

The cause may be the size of the recoverable items has reached its limit.Please refer to this link: Recoverable Items mailbox quotas

You can use the following cmdlet in Exchange Online to check the size of the recoverable items folder:

Get-MailboxFolderStatistics <username> -FolderScope RecoverableItems | FL Name,FolderAndSubfolderSize,ItemsInFolderAndSubfolders

If this is the case, please follow this link to delete items from the recoverable items folder and see if it can help with this issue:

Clean up or delete items from the Recoverable Items folder in Exchange Online

If the mailbox is on hold, please refer to this link:

Delete items in the Recoverable Items folder of cloud-based mailboxes on hold

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Answer 2

I was able to change the recovery folder from 30 days to 2 days.  I was hoping it would clear out over the weekend and open up space, but that's not the case.  It shows the user at 98% and still will not let me delete any files.  The instruction on clearing the recovery folder is not clear for me to understand.  I was able to pull the folder id numbers but from their, the instructions were not clear. 

Any help you can provide would be great.

Thank you